


Love over Revenge

by meikahidenori



Series: Jet Set Radio Future [2]
Category: jet set radio / jet set radio future
Genre: M/M, yaoi NSFW
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-28
Updated: 2013-02-28
Packaged: 2017-12-03 22:44:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 32,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/703481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/meikahidenori/pseuds/meikahidenori
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>EDIT: UPDATED</p><p>just a one-shot which went a little further than that and dare i say it... involved a plot!</p><p>seriously Folks, it's about a bond Created By two characters for each other, with a bit of revenge seeking gang members who got the boot who try to end everything. Judge for yourself... i may go back and write how the characters got involved with each other in the first place if this is received well. set a little after the second game, but references enough from both we can get away with it :D</p><p>written using Australian English, so sorry if there's some words that maybe spelt different.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Love over Revenge

Gum folded her arms as she stared at Yo-yo who was sitting on the couch. Boogie was sitting at the other end of the seat, with a similar expression on her features.

“Allright Yo-yo we need to have a talk. We can see what’s going on here and it needs to stop before someone gets hurt.” Boogie spoke looking Yo-yo dead in the eyes.

“What are you talking about?”

“Where talking about what’s going on between you and Beat, and you and Corn.” Gum murmured, shifting her weight.

“Oh that, it’s nothing really. Beat’s just another challenge and Corn well, I don’t know what he thinks but as far as I was aware there wasn’t anything else to that relationship other than, you know, sex really.”

Gum raised an eyebrow and Boogie drew a breath. Both girls where close to the boys in question and neither of them wanted them to get hurt, or at least fall out with one another. Corn would be upset and would be angry and aggressive, but would get over it after a while and probably never talk to Beat or Yo-yo again, as for Beat himself…

Neither of them wanted to think of that result, the guy already had enough problems as it was eating disorders to unstable emotional states from time to time when he was haunted by nightmares in his sleep, and yet was still and friendly a person you could imagine… and the last person you want to see hurt.

“Well if it’s nothing, you have to stop it as soon as possible before it becomes something. Beat won’t take it too well if he found out you and Corn where getting it on and those pieces maybe difficult to ever pick up.” Boogie glared. “And maybe tell Corn whether it’s a real relationship or not before he beats several kinds of crap out of you. I don’t think he’d enjoy the fact you’re just using him just for his body.”

Yo-yo rolled his eyes. “Fine whatever, I’ll break it off with them, you guys sure know how to kill the fun out of having two guys who like you, you know?”

They all turned to the sound of laughter coming from just outside the room. Corn’s voice, a lighter and more of a sing-song-so-whatever-carefree tones was doing most of the talking. Beat’s laughter was lower and more grittier sounding of someone who smoked a lot and always had a great deal on his mind was filling in the pauses.

“And so that the long and short of it, after all that Clutch manages not only to spill the food all over this girl, he also manages to sit on the lap of her boyfriend and get half our drinks down his trousers for his trouble.” Corn chimed with happy tunes as he finished his tale about what had happened earlier that week.

“Gee I may not like the guy much, but he’s got a lot of bad karma in his corner hasn’t he?” Beat said quietly with a smile.

“Oh I don’t really know, he brings it all upon himself. If it’s not him it Garam doing something just as stupid to impress the ladies when we go out anywhere and let’s face it it’s terribly funny to watch.” Corn mused. He spotted gum and Boogie and walked over, leaning over the back seat of the couch in-between Boogie and Yo-yo, and giving the latter a wink. “SO how are you guys all coping in this heat today? I thought you’d have all been off to the pool or something.”

“Ah, well where were just deciding that,” Yo-yo lied, getting a cold feeling from Gum.

“Nice, we’re just dropping in to shift some stuff.” Corn smiled and stood up, slinging an arm around Beat, bringing the taller twenty-three year old into a slight lean to his height level. “Did Beat here tell you guys that he got a new place?”

“No I hadn’t but you have done so for me.” Beat had flushed red with a mild annoyance that his surprise had been blown.

This wasn’t news to Gum and Boogie however, they’d already had some idea the second Soda and his wife where offering to rent out the spare rooms of their new house that Beat would have been one of the first to take up the offer. It wasn’t that Beat didn’t like sleeping in the garage with the rest of them, It was more of a case of that there wasn’t any room big enough for him. The late growth spurt just before he turned twenty made him even taller than Soda and that guy couldn’t walk around the place without hitting his head in every archway.

Yo-yo’s face had dropped slightly but he did well not to show the surprise. “When?”

“Well now, if that wasn’t going to be too inconvenient. I don’t have much stuff anyway, just a few cds, some clothes and a few books. You could pack my whole life into about four boxes.” Beat sighed. “I won’t be too far and I’ll still hang out here, I just need a bit of space, to get myself together. I’ve lived here with you guys for what, six years since coming to Tokyo-to so you’re all like family to me and I’d be stupid to throw it all away.” The answer was honest and brutally direct but his tone of voice wasn’t harsh in anyway shape or form.

“Aw, you didn’t tell them the BEST BIT!” Corn gave Beat a playful shove as he removed his arm to let the other guy stand at full height again. Corn then flung his arms open wide and grinned, “I’m going to move in there too!” he laughed. “The rents really cheap and It’s close to places that I can get work at so I’m all for it.”

The girls took a minute to exchange glances, conversation with Yo-yo partly forgotten and they both looked happy. “That’s’ good news.” Gum gave Corn a big hug and gave Beat a kiss on the cheek.

“Separate rooms?” Boogie asked, and caught Yo-yo squirm a little. It was clear that Yo-yo might not have told either of them he had been having a relationship with them both and that they didn’t know about it, but it was getting pretty clear that something was happening between the two boys that no one had been remotely aware of.

“Well, kind of. The rooms have a slider between them, as they’re actually one larger room.” Beat admitted. “Going halves on the one was a better deal till we manage to get work. We’ll see what happens from there.”

“It’s still exciting though!” Corn beamed. He may be only twenty two, but the first place he ever moved out of home to be here and even then it wasn’t a 100% fulltime move until last year. For him, this was a very exciting moment of independence. Beat had come from another country to wind up here and end up rather stuck unable to go back overseas, so moving into an actual house was a step back in the right direction.

Beat patted Corn on the back. “I’m just going to pack my stuff. You should too; Soda’s van won’t handle the heat if we leave it in the sun too long.” Beat walked off down the hall way into one of the smaller rooms. When he was well out of earshot, Corn leaned over and poked Yo-yo.

“Uh by the way Yo, our deal is off.”

Yo-yo looked terrified and the girls tried to keep straight faces. They’d both had already worked out what was going to happen here and were prepared to let Yo-yo wallow in his own mess after enjoying the welcome and unexpected outcome.

“What? What do you mean it’s off? You mean our little ya know thing we have is over?”

Corn looked a little surprised, he hadn’t expected any sort of remote care about calling an end to the friends with benefits situation they had going. He thought the whole point of that arrangement, at least the no attachment bit.

“It’s just over. Look, all I’m saying is, that it was nice but I have to be honest, sex isn’t everything, and it gets hollow and meaningless after while if the other person involved doesn’t feel anything for you. I mean, I did for a while but when you didn’t reciprocate it well…” Corn waved his arms around absently “And I just want someone who’ll love me back in the same way, with care and respect and all of that, if that makes any sense to you.” He leaned in and gave Yo-yo a kiss. “Sorry, it’s how I feel.” And with that he stood back up and walked towards his former tiny little room to pack his things.

Yo-yo sat in a stunned silence. There was a giggle from behind. Boogie couldn’t help herself, yo-yo’s expressions was hilarious as far as she was concerned.

“That was unexpected, and quite amusing all at the same time.” Gum purred. “Bet you didn’t see that coming.”

“I saw it, Yo-yo bluffed. But it’s ok, I still have a thing going with Beat, maybe I can try and push that further.”

Gum frowned and Boogie clicked her tongue. They had forgotten all about that and how game Yo-yo was to have at least one of them, no matter the outcome.

Beat re-entered and Gum was quick to grab the stuff that slipped out of his hands while he struggled to grip the heavy box he was holding in the most awkward position imaginable.

“Thankyou. I think I grabbed one thing too many at one time.” He hesitated. “It feels so weird leaving that room all empty, maybe one of you guys can have it instead of sharing? Or maybe one of the other guys can have-” Gum hushed him.

“We’ll sort that out later, at the moment we’ll give you a hand to carry these things out.”

“Thankyou.”

Gum handed Boogie a few of the items that sat on top of the box which evened the weight somewhat, and Yo-yo reluctantly got off the couch and took a few other items out of Beat’s arms freeing them so he only had to carry the box. All four of them headed outside and over to the beat up panel van in the yard. Beat placed the box down and slowly took the other items off the others. When it came to taking stuff off Yo-yo he spoke, as if he had been thinking about something for a little while.

“Yo, can I talk to you alone for a few minutes?”

“Sure, what’s up?” Yo-yo lead Beat around the other side of the van out of the girls line of sight.

“I’ve got a few things to sort out myself, and let’s face it; we didn’t get on very well at the best of times...” Beat scratched the back of his head.

Yo-yo Frowned. “What do you mean? Are you still going to hang what I did to Pots over my head? I was damn scared and I didn’t mean to do it.”

“No, no of course not… thought I still won’t forgive you for that.” He blinked when he saw Yo-yo’s jaw drop. “D-Don’t’ look at me like that!” He stuttered, “Just be glad I’m willing to get over it and put it in the past!”

Yo-yo’s jaw opened and closed a few times, lost for words. Finally he found some. “Sure, that’s fine. I can take it or leave it.” He sounded dejected. Beat patted him on the shoulder.

“Look I’m sure we can be friends after all this, alright? So don’t stress too much.”

There was a noise and Beat jogged around the other side of the truck, Yo-yo sighing and trundling behind. He stopped by the girls as Beat jogged ahead and helped Corn who had just walked out and dropped almost everything in his hands. Beat was laughing and talking to him in a way that he never did once to Yo-yo before. “Come on Yasu, even I had to get help to carry my crap out here! Let me give you a hand.”

“Yasu?” Yo-yo blinked.

“Yasuda, Yo. Corn’s real name is Yasuda. After all that you and him have done, you’d think you’d have known that.”

Gum snorted. “Come off it Boogie, I doubt he’d have learnt Beat’s name let alone Corns.”

“Sure I have.” Yo –yo snapped.

“Oh really? What is it then?” Gum leaned over, her perfume strong and pungent, but not unpleasant to be in.

“Yes, it’s uh… Um..”

“It’s Ryan.” Boogie prompted. “He dislikes it, but I think it’s a sweet name for a guy.”

“I knew that.” Yo-yo growled.

“Wow your rather touchy Yo, what’s a matter, Beat turn you down too?” Gum tried hard not to smile, but it was hard to avoid sounding smug.

“That’s none of your business.” Yo-yo snapped.

“He did, didn’t he?” Boogie teased.

“Shut up.” Yo-yo sighed. The girls’ exchanges glances and Yo-yo stared off, and unconsciously focused on both beat and Corn for a few moments. Was it his imagination or was there something going on there? He sulked a bit more while watching, but then stared in surprise when Beat lifted some of Corns stuff and leaned back down to Kiss the short blond. To Gum and Boogie, this didn’t come as a surprise, but for Yo-yo this was a massive sting in the whole affair.

“But how? Why?”

Gum shrugged. “I guess it was bound to happen. Maybe they found something in each other that you failed to provide.”

“Or maybe they have known each other long enough to feel comfortable to give it a try.” Boogie smiled. “Come on Gum, the sooner we help them move their stuff the sooner we can have a house warming party for them at Sodas.”

“Now that’s something I’d be all for.” Gum laughed. The girls left Yo-yo to stew in his own misdeeds and to ponder how he managed to lose the two best things he had going for him.

 

 

The last of the boxes was dropped ungracefully in the middle of the large room where both Beat and Corn had picked to share. Corn dusted his hands like a job well done and rested them on his hips. Beat flopped on the floor on his back, over heated from unloading the van in the burning Tokyo-to sun. He looked up with bright green eyes and laughed. “You’re totally burnt mate.” He laughed, but was cut-off by a slight smokers cough.

Corn surveyed the room. “Well if we can get our mattresses set up and leave the other stuff to unpack till later we should be all good.” He looked down at the red head who looked bushed. “That’s if you’re able to move. Are you listening to me?”

“Muhmmah, unpack later, gotchya.” Beat murmured. He wasn’t inclined to get up. Corn’s expression looked smug and he stepped out the room. He returned a few minutes later, leant over Beat who still hadn’t moved tugged at his singlet top and rubbed cold ice all down his furry front. Beat grabbed both Corns arm and held them so the blonde was leaning right over the top of him. “What was that for?”

“I thought you might be a little bit hot after all that and I found those in the fridge and thought I’d cool you off.” Corn was grinning from ear to ear.

“Oh really?” Beat’s expression went from annoyance to devious in a flash. Before Corn realised what was happening Beat had pushed Corn onto his back, grabbed some of the melting ice and started attacking Corn with it under his shirt and dropping a few choice pieces down his shorts. Corn was fighting it, but was careful not to kick Beat too hard to get off him, the taller having height advantage but the lack of strength to stop Corns struggling beneath him was obvious enough for the other to be gentle about it.

“It’s nice to see you two have already helped yourself to the ice box in the freezer.”

Both of them looked up to see Soda and his wife Kodachi standing in the doorway. Beat blushed and Corn laughed making Beat blush harder.

Soda waved it off. “It’s all right you two, you’re paying for the room so feel free to do whatever you like. That’s why it’s on the other side of the house.” Soda let out a brief chuckle. “Just remember to eventually get your own mini fridge and help out with the meals around here and you’ll be fine.”

“We will, I saw the kitchen earlier and I can’t wait to do something wicked in there.” Beat rephrased that when Soda’s wife gave him a ‘I’ll use your guts for stockings if you break anything in there look’, “I mean I’ll whip us up some awesome stuff, it’s been a long time since I’ve actually had a kitchen to make real food in.”

Corn frowned. “Hey, normally we have to force you to eat!”

“Of course, I mean you’ve tasted Ryth and Gum’s cooking right? And Jazz’s idea is takeout food like everyone else. I can’t eat noodles every single meal without wanting to feel sick in doing so.” He smiled. “Just once I’d like to be able to cook steaks and things like I used to back home.” He sighed. “You guys always forget I’m not Japanese and I’m not used to all the noodles and the fish. That stuff makes me sick pretty quick you know.”

“I’m sure we can arrange other foods.” Kodachi smiled. “I’m not too keen on all the sea food either.” Beat sighed with relief. Corn wasn’t paying attention to the conversation though; he was trying hard to supress some mild excitement he had gotten from the play fight and felt uncomfortable that they’d been walked in upon. First thing he was going to do was ask Soda later if it was possible to get a latch to lock the door.

“Tea’s at seven unless you guys change the schedule with your own masterpieces, if you miss out you guys can make your own.”

Both of them nodded and Beat laughed as Corn’s head banged against the floor. Soda shook his head and closed the door behind him and his wife leaving them alone to unpack what they wanted.

“Are those the same guys that where at our wedding? The same ones that gave out those speeches?”

Soda nodded. “They were good speeches love.”

“Yes they were, Ryan and Yasuda right?”

Again, Soda nodded.

“It’s nice to see Ryan smile and Yasu all flustered for a change. They look happier than last time I saw them.”

“The last time you saw them Ryan was a mess and Yasu had a lot on his mind, mostly to do with making sure Ryan was not over doing things. Since the city is now safer than it was under Rokkaku rule, I can say they’re slowly returning to their old selves, which I’m grateful for. It might take Ryan a little longer, but I assure you being playful and mischievous is normal for them.”

“How much longer are you going to sit on top of me?”

“Oh, sorry,”

“Don’t be. You look amazing on top.” Corn winked and got rewarded with Beat’s hot, embarrassed flushes. Corn grabbed Beat by the waist and before you know it he was now on top of him again. “You’re so easy to distract, you know that right?” Corn purred playfully.

“Maybe,” Beat’s low sounding voice sounded rather tantalising. “As long as it’s only you that’s the distraction.” The red head gently pulled the blonde closer to kiss him, his hands slowly and lightly making traces down along Corn’s back sending shivers down the other’s spine. “You know something else?” Beat’s voice growled softly, sounding rather gravely, “I know that you’re ticklish.”

Corn paused, thinking he was going to be in for something he was not going to enjoy. He didn’t like being tickled in the slightest way, laughing till it hurt was not something he found fun. He was surprised, when Beat’s fingertips slid beneath his shirt, that their feathery touch was slightly ticklish, but not unpleasant. His lips made their way along Corn’s body too; they were warm and soft just like his touch. Corn knew he was starting to shiver, but in a good way. The feeling made him shuffle a little, but only because he was worried about collapsing on top of Beat with his full weight as the sensation spread all over his body. Unlike his time spent getting it on with Yo-yo, Beat was more set on exploring, learning about what Corn liked to feel. Corn was surprised to find he was enjoying the attention, something he had lacking from his last lover. He’d promised himself he’d never tell anyone about that relationship either, as sex without the care and love to go with it didn’t feel good like people told him it would. At the moment, he was happy to leave Beat to explore all day if it continued to feel this great.

“Are you sure you’re a virgin?” Corn panted, as another shiver filled him full of feelings he never experienced before. “Because you’re a real tease you know that?”

Beat pulled away a bit and Corn felt guilty as he looked hurt. “Am I doing something wrong? I thought that you’re supposed to spoil each other and make each other feel good?”

Corn cursed himself inwardly for saying something so stupid. “No, you’re not doing anything wrong. Infact you maybe the only person here doing something right.”

Beat then kissed his lips again. “Then let me show you what I like.” Beat kissed him again, pulling him closer to him. “Although next time I’m going to let you work that out for yourself.” He grinned, the smile making his features devious and attractive. Corn’s blue eyes couldn’t help themselves drink it all in, from the cat-green eyes with long lashes to the deep scars that graced his cheekbone. It wasn’t that Beat wasn’t attractive in his own way, you had to be able to see past the injures and scars to really see what was there. Corn on the other hand, had been very lucky not getting shot at or into very dangerous situations that required a lot of medical attention but he knew Beat had most likely found where the few he had where just via touch.

Beat’s hand guided Corn’s under the singlet he wore and Corn started to chuckle. “Are you this hairy all over?”

“Maybe. You don’t like?” Beat was aware typical Japanese guys didn’t sport much body hair, and always felt strange about taking off his shirt around others as he wasn’t about to waste what little money he had on full body waxing, or laser removal for all his tattoos, which was also a big no no in certain areas and establishments in Tokyo-to.

“I could get used to it.” Corn admitted. His voice purred as he spoke again. “It’s very different and very soft, just like a little puppy or something.”

He felt Beat’s chest move as the other laughed. “You think so?”

Corn’s hand ran across Beat’s chest and around a nipple making Beat slightly jink his body upwards upon touch. “Yes. I think so.” Corn smiled as he didn’t expect to get a reaction so quickly. He traced it along the red heads broad collarbone that was slightly bent on the left hand side from badly healing after a fall, and he could feel raised areas where bullets and other scars lay across his torso. He could feel Beat’s body shiver as he touched and the slight harsh sounds of pleasure escaping his lips each time he took a breath.

“You know we’re going to have to get some more food into you, I can feel your ribs under everything.” Corn sounded a little concerned. He didn’t wait for and answer though; he knew he wouldn’t get one. He tugged up the singlet and ran both hands along Beat’s body now, and watched how his lover moved under the feel of his hands. The hair he could feel was fairly light and not entirely noticeable, but it was the tattoos that caught his eye that where really impressive. Corn had only ever seen the ones on Beat’s arms, but had never seen the ones that spiralled along his stomach and along his right hand side. They weren’t really of anything in particular, just interesting shapes and patterns. He traced them with his fingers, and then moved in to do so with his tongue. Beat jinked again, but Corn held him still, fully aware that this area down his love’s side was sensitive enough to make him almost jump off the floor. Corn’s free hand slid up the leg of Beat’s shorts and stroked along his inner thigh, the feeling was intense enough for Beat to grab onto Corn’s shoulder to stop himself from pulling away and to keep him still enough for Corn to keep toying with him. Beat’s fingers ran fast down Corn’s spine again, slowly pulling the blonde towards him again. Beat had not given up on wanting to explore Corn and was slowly trying to fight back, But Corn brushed against Beat’s weak spot down the side, making Beat wither and shudder beneath him.

Beat managed to work up the courage to delve his hands carefully into the blonde’s trousers, losing the rim of them to allow free movement around his lover’s waist. The quick and light feel in that area made Corn go weak at the knees and let out a sound he didn’t even know existed. He knew he was damn ticklish all over and didn’t expect to be so sensitive there, especially in an area of the hips where it was mostly all bone. Beat let out a sudden grunt as more of Corn’s weight was added on top of him in the moment of sheer weakness, but masked the pain rather well, as he didn’t want to let the blonde go. If he left bruises, he’d deal with them later… like everything else that Beat tended to put off about his own well being.

“Beat, I ugnh..” Corn murmured and panted as Beat’s hands delved a little lower and pulled Corn’s trousers down slightly along with them. “Ryan…” Corn purred, but was silenced when Beat’s lips pressed gently against his own. Corn wasn’t going to let a virgin lead their first time together, he was supposed to be showing Beat how it was done wasn’t he? But truth be told, Corn was now proceeding without a map and being pulled along for the ride. Not to be outdone, Corns hands started feeling their way into Beat’s shorts and around the back and down the back of his thighs, breaking off the kiss as Beat’s sudden impulse to gasp for air took over. Corn took the opportunity to trail kisses down his neck and tug off the shorts and boxers leaving his lover’s lower half all exposed. He trailed his fingers along the light furry snail trail from Beat’s belly button towards his abdomen making the other buck upwards from the hips. He looked Beat in the eyes, searching for a sign that the other was ready for this. He ran his hands along just under Beat’s belly and was rewarded with a deep moaning sound coupled in with the sound of his own name. Corn found it really sexy. If he could hear that voice call his name over and over again he’d die happy.

“Yasu..”

Corn shuffled one of Beat’s legs out of the way and slowly pushed, careful not to hurt him.

“YASU- NAGH!” there was a brief sting of pain and Corn was surprised to hear such a loud whimper. It made him pause as he was a little worried he had actually hurt him going in like that.

“Don’t stop.” Beat breathed. It sounded like he was choking on the air he was breathing. “Don’t stop.” Beat’s arms reached up shakily and Corn obliged by wrapping his own around him tightly. The red head was shaking, and despite knowing that this was his first time, Corn had been ignorant of it due to all the teasing Beat had been able to do. Something he had never experienced before was someone giving themselves so willingly to him and lowering their defences so he could do however he pleased. Out of all the times he’d seen Beat scared or worried –which contra to popular belief, was quite often only around certain people - this was terrifying as this time it was Corn himself that he was afraid of.

“I’ll stop if you’re not ready for this.” Corn whispered in Beat’s ear. “As it will hurt a little, and I don’t want to hurt you at all.” Corn could feel a little tear touch the side of his cheek that was pressed against Beats. There was a shaky nod. “Alright we’ll just take it slow ok?”

“Yasu…”

“Hmm?”

“I love you.”

Corn kissed Beat on the lips. “I love you to Ry.” He breathed out and kissed him again, this time putting all his weight into his pelvic region and eliciting a groaning gasp from Beat. He made sure he also rubbed against Beat’s lower half at the same time, mixing the pain with pleasure to try and make it less of a bad experience. Beat was already fairly wet, and the extra pressure would not take much for him to be expelled and spent long before Corn had got started. Corn wouldn’t mind, as there would always be another time and maybe teasing Beat a lot less would have him hold out much longer. He pushed again and grunted himself. In honesty, Corn wasn’t going to hold out too long either.

“Nughuh.” Beat panted as another thrust was made. They were slowly getting faster and they did hurt the quicker they got. It was ok, as he knew it wasn’t intentional and wanted to keep this close to Corn as long as he could. “UHNGH!” he gasped, his head thrown back as his whole body bucked back into Corns. “Uhnnn..Ah…ha..ahh.. Yas-Yasuda….AH!” his heart had leapt into his throat; he couldn’t breathe and didn’t care, at least for the moment.

“Uhhng.. Ry..ugh… ah…” Corn’s higher voice lowered a few octaves. He lent in to steal another kiss, this time it was longer, and Beat had actually pushed upward and made the kiss harder than his last. Corn pushed rougher this time, and Beat’s arms pulled his body closer despite how hard it was to hold them both together. The last one was so intense, Corn’s fingernails dug into Beat’s soft skin and he muffled a startled cry with his lips over his lovers. He collapsed, his full weight on top of Beat, panting extremely hard, trying to get air into his lungs. He held onto Beat tightly, the other shaking very badly and struggling just as hard to breathe. Corn must have been shaking too, for Beat’s arms where holding him as tight as possible afraid of what might happen if he left go. The heat had not helped, the room now smelt of sweat and hormones and was floating around like a muggy fog. Corn could hear Beat’s heart racing in his chest and eventually begin to slow back down into a rhythm.

“Yasu.”

“Yeah?”

“You’re actually really heavy.”

“Well I’m not moving anywhere.”

“Good.”

There was a gentle knocking on the other side of the door. “Are you both busy?”

Both of them froze. Beat then answered, “Um sort of, we’re getting changed into our bathers.” He winched as Corn jabbed him hard in the ribs for such a dumb answer.

“Funny, I was about to ask you guys if you wanted a lift to the pool. Ryth rang and said they’d meet you both there.”

“Sounds good, just give us a few minutes.” Corn replied. He slowly crawled off the top of Beat, and then helped him sit up.

“You know what sucks about the pool? It’s public and you can’t show off all your tattoos.” Corn frowned. “I like them too they’re a part of you.”

“It’s ok. You saw how bad I was when we were at the beach trying to surf.” Beat kissed him. “I’m just happy to watch you guys and maybe read a book out of the sun.”

“You sure?”

“Positive.”

Corn couldn’t help but smile when catching a glimpse of Beat’s green eyes under the red mass of hair. After the past few years, Beat was one of the few people Corn actually listened to, as chances are you’d be on the losing end of any argument with the guy, even if it was about his own safety… although in that case you had to argue and fight the urge to find reason and walk away, most people would have. Corn learned long ago that having someone like Beat was useful to have in your corner when things went bad, as they always gave you the strength to keep going and not to give up. Turning this friendship into a relationship was a bit strange at first for him, but having a lot of trust invested in each other meant it was worth giving it a shot, so far it had worked out reasonably well too, though it did help that Beat had already adopted the GG’s as a family and was already close to everyone and knew where he could push things and draw a line in the sand. Pity not many worked the same out with him. Garam is still awkward that Beat was openly gay from day one, but is at least nice enough now to keep comments to himself, which happens after having your arse saved by him a few times. There’s a few where this is still a bit of a stigma attached-like Cube for example- who still disagree with the choice of lifestyle, but that had never brought the guy down unless he was already in a bad headspace to begin with. When everyone in the gang started to get into the whole ‘experimenting’ stage with other people as well as each other, some unusual things about everyone came to the surface. For a start, Corn discovered he wasn’t into girls, and that became very clear when he was set up with one of the triplets from Rapid 99. Boy was he happy to be friends with Beat then, He didn’t know what would have happened if he didn’t know anyone who was already gay and happy with themselves for it. A few Bi-Sexuals bubbled to the surface then as well so it wasn’t as if he was the only one adjusting to new discoveries about themselves. Beat didn’t force anything on him either, hence why they only just started having a relationship after a few rough hurdles. What changed were some things that had to be exchanged, even though they were not really intended to come out like they had.

Beat brushed his nose against Corn’s and kissed him. “You’re sweet when you’re thinking.” Then stood up to raid one of the boxes with his clothes.

“Feh, You’re just saying that.”

Beat walked back over with a pair of trousers and a long sleeved shirt and kissed Corn’s forehead and hugged him close. “No I’m not. I mean it. Don’t doubt yourself, others will do that for you and when they do, you can ignore them as you know it’s not true.” He winked.

“Gee you say some silly things man.”

“Sometimes, but it’s all true.” Beat pulled one leg into his jeans. “Come on, they can’t wait for us forever.”

 

 

“You sure you’re not going to overheat in that Beat?” Corn asked when they walked inside the public pool gates to join the rest of the GG’s. Corn was wearing Beat’s singlet from before and Beat’s short since he couldn’t find his amongst his things (Corn being a great believer in ‘who cares I’ll find it later’ system of putting stuff in boxes) and had slung a towel over his shoulder in an attempt to look cool. The top was really loose and the shorts where rather tight, but as long as they smelled of Beat he didn’t care.

“I haven’t got much of a choice, Corn.” Beat frowned, also dropping back into graffiti artist nickname code they used to hide their real names from others and the authorities. “This place the other’s picked is too open and I don’t want to be kicked out for being mistaken for someone in the Japanese’s mafia like the last place we used to go to. That was embarrassing and I’d rather not have to do that ever again. I was lucky they couldn’t tie me to anything in all those police checks then, I’d hate to think what they’d be able to link me to now.” He squeezed Corn on the other shoulder. “Between, yourself, Gum, Mew and Soda, I’m pretty sure I’m not going to dehydrate. You’d all be onto it like hawks, and if I did manage to do so you lot will NEVER let me hear then end of it.” He laughed and gave Corn a playful shove.

Ryth waved them over. Out of all the girls, she was the only one not wearing bathers. Ryth wasn’t big on swimming neither, but did enjoy watching the others have fun. And as she had said before, someone need to watch your stuff, although her idea of watching your stuff was going through it and seeing what everybody had brought with them. Her and Beat still haven’t let Clutch off the hook for having a pair of Sonic themed Yfronts. She gave Corn a rather complicated handshake, and Corn returned it which finished in a high five, and Beat gave her a kiss on the cheek.

“You guys have only been moved out for a few hours and already we miss you!” she chirped. “We can’t wait to throw you guys a new place party!”

“You’d have to ask Soda that,” Beat smiled, flashing a pretty white smile. “It’s still his house.”

“Oh I’m sure he wouldn’t mind us all around for a few drinks!” she laughed.

“I dunno about that he’s already warned me about smoking indoors.” Beat flopped down in the shade. “It’s hard trying to quit you know, but I’m trying.”

“So you should.” Corn his towel at him. “It’s a disgusting habit.” He smiled when he said that, as he was aware Beat’s clothes that he was wearing smelled of it and it was something he quite liked, even though he’d never have one himself.

Beat snorted. “Don’t you start too? We all have our vices and let’s face it, take that off me what else have I got?”

Corn lent in and gave him a long kiss which made Ryth laugh like an excited school girl. “There’s me you dumb arse.” Corn pulled back and headed over towards the pool, where Garam had already started giving him rubbish about public displays of affection and Corn shouted back similar insults much to the laughter for those already swimming.

Ryth flopped down ungracefully beside Beat and gave him a nudge. “You guys really hit it off huh?”

“Yeah.” Beat smiled softly. He looked very content. “I was worried it wasn’t going to work and he was going to reject how I felt.”

“Oh?” Ryth looked surprised. “And why was that?”

“I just, was afraid I guess. I’ve always been worried about letting people get close to me, you know that. When Yo-yo was trying to take advantage of me I felt awful. I couldn’t let go of the emotional attachment over Pots either till recently. He’s sweet, but he is a manipulating little bastard.” Ryth watched his features carefully, for someone she got to know quite well he hid his emotions, though there were small indicators to what was welling up on the inside, was looking rather disappointed in himself.

“When Yo-yo tried it on Corn, I was ashamed I didn’t stop it before it started. It’s one thing to abuse someone because they’re nice to you and need help to stay on top of dangerous thoughts, which by the way I don’t have as much, the nightmares about Rokkaku coming back are slowly going away,” He winked and Ryth sighed a little relief. She knew he had been a little messed up after the whole Rokkaku incident and after the whole tower coming down and seeing all those people who had died as a result of their rule. It affected everyone in some way, But Beat really went downhill in everything and they almost found out a little too late. Watching your best friend who was like a brother succumb to an eating disorder was painful, and only recently have they managed to change it all around.

“But to abuse someone physically like that through manipulation is too much. Corn is my oldest friend and didn’t deserve that, not after everything else he had happen to him in the last few years.” He paused. “By the way I’ve been meaning to thankyou for those few days away for us to all get our shit together. The weather down at the beaches in Okinawa was wonderful, although we did spend a lot of that time just talking and sorting things out. Heck, it’s been years since I got out a surfboard and I managed to get Corn onto one, though after almost drowning we had to toss in the towel.”

“Wait, you mean you actually swam?”

Beat laughed. “No, more like floated on the surface. I don’t sink very well.” This got a very loud snort and giggle out of Ryth that caused a few heads to turnaround and look, in case the joke was on them. The reaction made the two of them laugh even harder. Beat rolled up the sleeves on the shirt, they were starting to stick in the heat, and when you have a lot of body hair, the sweat makes you start to itch. “Fuck man, next time I get to choose where we go, cause I can’t keep wearing all this on in the sun. I found plenty of places where we could go and I was able to show tattoos and I’m actually pretty miffed that no one has picked any to go to yet.”

Ryth sighed, resting her chin on her knees. “Technically myself, Boogie and Gum didn’t get to pick. We were only allowed to make the suggestion. We got outvoted.”

“Now why am I not fucking surprised.” Beat muttered in English, Ryth looked at him as she also noticed the slight change in his accent she has never heard before. She studied English at school and knew what country Beat was original from and was still surprised that she had never actually heard him speak his first language before. Unlike Garam who’s London accent carried through into his Japanese and Clutch who’s Canadian did the same, Beat’s Occa more or less vanished. While one sounded posh and the other had a twang, Beat’s accent wasn’t as obvious in Japanese as it was in English. “Sorry Ryth. I didn’t mean to speak in-” he stared to say in Japanese.

Ryth grabbed him by the leg and gave it a bit of a shake. “It’s alright. At least you try… unlike some people.” She looked thoughtful. “Has Corn ever heard you speak anything other than Japanese before?”

Beat shook his head. “Not that I’m aware of. I’m not sure, I’ve had to a few times around the others just to get them into line and to at least get their attention. I prefer not to if I can avoid it.”

“You should, your accent is beautiful.”

“Nah, I don’t think he’d like it. Besides, the whole time we’ve known each other I’ve only maybe only told you where I’m from, and well the others who know are always trying to prove to me that I’m inferior to them. I maybe born there, but I’m really just a halfer. Even people from other countries have a thing about it. You’d think these days the stigma wouldn’t exist since we all mix and everything, but people get so funny when you say you’re gay on top of that.” Beat sighed. “I don’t really want to add fuel to the fire, there’s enough people even in our own gang who would be happy to see the back of me… and Yo-yo will also be glad to see the back of me after all this too.”

“You underestimate people a lot, you know that?” but doubt was seeping into her words. She was well aware of some of the horrible stuff that Clutch, Cube and Garam had said in his absence and while it was all well and good to tell them to keep their mouths shut, you couldn’t change their opinions.

“Maybe, but you suck at lying too.” Beat smiled and gave her a nudge with his elbow. “Anyway I should go help Soda with the snags on the barbie, otherwise we’ll be eating lumps of charcoal like last time.” He stood up and started humming to himself as he wandered off, “ _Make me feel tiny if it makes you feel tall, but there’s always someone cooler than you…yeah you’re the shit but you won’t be it for long ‘cause there’s always someone cooler than you…(ben fold’s five song)”_

Ryth frowned. She was hoping he managed to leave a lot of his problems behind when they were away, she didn’t expect some of them to resurface when he came back. Unfortunately there was nothing she could do about it, the others had been rather cruel since they had first joined the gang towards him about it and despite doing a lot of things that where borderline suicide to protect their way of life as free loaders, save the city and she would admit some of them did more to stop it all falling apart more than others; it was still hurtful that they still continued to be arseholes about things that where no longer important. There was a time she’d say she was proud to be a GG and in some respects still was. Unlike most gangs in Tokyo-to, The GG’s where very open to other cultures and people from other countries joining their crew. They did their best to break the language barrier, Gum and Corn, brother and sister both born in japan to half Irish parents and Beat, who got stranded here when his passport back to Australia had expired before his study visa ran out. Ryth herself was from Korea, Jazz from Brazil and Boogie from South Africa. They were open an accepting of everyone and despite everything, when Gum accidently mentioned the reason why her and Beat never went out, things sort of became sour towards the redhead. Gum still kicks herself about it, although Beat said it was going to come out sooner or later and it may as well be over and done with. That’s where Ryth saw a sticking point in the situation as not everyone was open to the idea of other’s freedom of sexuality due to the large culture clash. Beat usually ignored it, but after while he had snapped and Combo and Soda had to pry him off Garam who almost ended up with more than his face re-arranged. Garam never then said anything to his face about his extreme dislike, but someone like Cube did all the time and since Beat wasn’t into hitting girls, She was free to get as nasty as she pleased. So Far, Corn hadn’t gone through the same out casted ridicule over the same thing, but it was only a matter of time before one of them slipped up and said something infront of the red head that Beat would bash seven kinds of crap out of them for.

The GG’s had spread themselves out along one large picnic table that was on the grounds with all the food they had managed to rustle up amongst them in the middle. Like Beat promised, the sausages and the hamburgers where not burnt, and there was a wider selection of food than the standard Japanese fair they were mostly use to. There was numerous languages been spoken and jokes being shared and everyone seemed to have been enjoying themselves in the sun all day. Beat had been squeezed inbetween Ryth and Combo, Ryth talking nonstop while shovelling food into her mouth, and Combo who sat in silence like he usually did, delicately assembling his own custom burger. Corn had regularly been looking up his end of the table, until a conversation about him and Gum being related came up from Soda’s wife which made him totally forget why he was worried about not sitting next to his new partner. Beat just prodded a tomato around the plate thoughtfully, he wasn’t really hungry, but more interested in some of the conversations he was able to understand that where floating around the table. Currently, the one he was most interested in was being spoken in English, about Clutch’s current girlfriend who was a part of Rappid 99. They were joking around about Clutch and his bad choices in woman, but then Cube said something that made the whole conversation turn.

“Really? That bad huh.” Garam laughed. “Look I wasn’t aware you were so desperate for someone to put out man, if I knew that we’d have set you up with Yo-yo, I mean we all know he likes to play around.”

Cube snorted. “That’s no secret, Yo-yo would probably screw Ryth if she asked him to. He swings both ways.” She leaned in and raised her voice. “ Although I bet if your willing to go that way, I hear Corn’s pretty loose for one, Because after spending all that time with Beat, he’d might like an arse that isn’t so hard to get into.”

Ryth had also heard it and fell silent, but quickly grabbed hold of Beat at the same time Combo made a grab for the tall skinny red head bolted out of his seat, slammed his hands on the table and shouted loud enough for everyone to stare in their direction, even though half of them had no idea how to speak English. They knew rage when they heard it.

“Alright that’s enough you fucking fake goth chick wannabe!” He snapped, his occa accent thick and nasty, and with his deeper sounding voice made it sound like melting lead hissing on the woodwork of the table, “I have had enough of you giving me so much fucking shit ever since you became a member of this fucking gang; but this time you’ve fucking gone too far! What happened between Corn and Yo-yo is none of your damn business, nor is it any of your business what goes on between me and Corn. I don’t give a fucking fat fuck what you do with Poison jam, maybe you get gangbanged by them every night after hours, who cares? Noone needs to know or hear any of the verbal diarrhoea you dribble from you lips nor from the fucking wanker useless piece of horse shit of an Englishman beside you.” He indicated that last insult in Garam’s direction. “Clutch’s girlfriend is entitled to do whatever she liked and no offence mate if you’re going to pressure someone to have sex with you because you’re a horny pathetic heap of shit then you don’t deserve that person in the first place. Go take you’re fucking dirty magazines and go wank yourself off in a corner where none has to hear about it.” He took a deep breath, and then spoke a little calmer. “Just because not all of us speak English doesn’t mean we cannot fucking understand you. Just watch what you say in future or else.. you’ll be having to watch your backs.” After that last part he realised that everyone on the table was looking at him, and he got flustered. “I need a smoke and beer.” He mumbled, his eyes lowering long enough to register that they were not actually staring at him anymore, they were staring at his left hand.

When Beat slammed his hands on the table fuled with rage, he had not noticed he slammed it down onto of the metal meat skewer pike in the centre of the table, slightly to his left. The skewer was sticking out though his whole hand, and he had not felt a single ounce of pain the whole time. It was taking a little while for the rest of his body to catch up to his pain receptors as now the adrenaline was wearing off and the shock was going straight up his arm.

The mixture of heat, pain and shock made Beat’s legs buckle as he went quite pale and Combo had to quickly grab him to stop him falling over backwards. Cube started to laugh at the sudden exposure of weakness from their former leader but had to fight the urge to continue as everyone else gave her dark looks.

She started to talk arrogantly in Japanese, “Oh look at our former great fearless leader, who can’t even stay upright after seeing a tiny bit of his own blood.” She snapped. “You know why we bag the crap out of you? It’s because it’s wrong and disgusting; that’s why. It’s not normal and let’s face it the idea of anyone liking you in anyway shape or form is laughable, you’re a suicidal freak and I’m surprised you haven’t killed yourself doing some of the dangerous shit you do yet. No one actually respects you, their only afraid of you and those that are nice only are out of pity for your pitiful existence.”

Beat would have glared her down, but instead his stomach had decided the blood was too much after eating and he had to go off and be sick. He broke out of Combos grip and headed for the nearest bushes. He couldn’t help it, he had not drunk much water all day and the result of himself not feeling well to begin with. Combo wasn’t too far behind though, He was worried about his safety.

Cube had attempted to storm off, but walked into Corn and was face to face with him. She felt something sharp poke her in the stomach.

“Now, this can go either way,” Corn spoke calmly, only loud enough for Cube to hear. “Now I don’t quite know what triggered this and I plan to find out very quickly, even if Beat won’t tell me himself and I bet a lot of money on that.” Corn swung his other arm out to stop Garam sneaking past, a large meat de-boner blocking his path at chest height. Garam swallowed. “I’ve had enough of everything from you two over the years and this is the last straw. If you do not have your stuff cleared out of GG turf by night fall tomorrow I will make sure you are posted back to your home countries in shoe boxes big enough for all the pieces. And it will not just be me who will have the honour of ripping you apart.”

“You wouldn’t dare commit murder.”

“Who said it would be murder? I’d call it getting rid of the excess baggage. We are after all a street gang and entitled to act as such killers that the media tends to portray us as. Now get lost. You have no friends here.” Corn’s voice was full of venom. Garam could have easily wrestled the knife off him, but re thought that move, as other members of the GGs who we not helping Beat, where now circling around them under some kind of spell like a pack of hungry animals who could smell the death of a creature who betrayed them. Even Clutch and Yo-yo who have not always been in the good books knew where to draw the line, and hung back a bit encase they were next on the list.

He lowered the knives and let them go. Cube shoved her way passed, but neither of them dared to look back. Corn looked up before walking back towards the tables, and handed Gum the knives and said, “Make sure they’ve cleared off tomorrow before 6pm. I’m sure you and the others can handle that.”

“And you brother?”

“I have something they have broken to fix. If I have to come down there; there will be hell and I will be bringing a monster with me. You know how it is,” Corn smiled. “Beat hates to lose.” The smile had been brief, but it was cold and sinister and she knew Corn meant every word of it. Whatever had happened to make Beat react that way and Cube say what she had would have usually made Beat very dangerous to be anywhere around, when he was upset, he tended to spread it around and weapons are usually forcefully pried from his grasp. They had dodged a bullet as Corn wasn’t one to get his hands dirty and Beat wasn’t in any state to have attacked anyone, but after a day of two you would not want to be around to find out.

Corn walked around the table and over to Beat, knelt down and felt his forehead. “I told you you’d over heat in all that. Are you feeling alright?”

“No, Sorry about all that. I really shouldn’t have been listening to them but I couldn’t avoid it. Can’t tune out all the time.” Beat’s head just flopped onto Corn’s shoulder, who just wrapped his arms around him.

“You upset still Yo?” Clutch asked as a general question to break the silence that had fallen over the rest of them as they were all suddenly packing up in an effort to find stuff to do. He had wrapped up some of the salad and was starting on some of the cold meats.

“Yes and no.” Yo-yo spoke quietly. Ryth sided up with them to help Yo-yo with the drinks. “I mean yes as in I’m going to miss Beat sticking up for me and Corn’s affection when things go south, but I could never really handle having Beat open up to me as much as he has with Corn, and let’s face it, I could never be able to back Corn up in a tight spot like Beat can.” He sighed. “It’s not easy, but it maybe for the best anyway. Who knows? Maybe they’ll help me find someone for me now they know where all my failings and strengths are?”

Ryth patted Yo-yo on the back. “All you really need to do is shake that silver tongue and I’m sure you’d find it so much easier Yo.”

Clutch had to agree with Ryth on this one “It’s not like anyone doesn’t trust you, we know you’re good at holding onto secrets, it just that lying mouth gets in the way.”

“I can try, though I cannot promise miracles.” Yo-yo sighed, at least this time with a smile.”

Corn secured Beat’s hand with a bandage and convinced him to swap shirts with him while there weren’t many people left at the pool. They were not going to hang around anyway, after cleaning up with the others it was going to be time to call it quits, even though there was a planned karaoke night ahead for the rest of the evening, it didn’t seem like anyone was really up to it anymore. Beat had got up and was slowly helping Soda pack up all the cooking equipment in silence, after everything that happened, he wanted to stay as unnoticeable as possible, as he didn’t like the idea of anyone thinking he was weak like Cube had implied before, and was hoping that if they left him alone he would at least be able to salvage some of his damaged ego. If anything it was the opposite, but no one would want to tell him that incase it did more damage. Corn proceeded to pick up rubbish in the same quiet manner, although in his case they were really afraid to talk to him as they had never seen him get aggressive before and it was unnerving and unnatural. Slowly everyone else began to pick up conversations like nothing had happened. Kodachi, Soda’s wife patted Corn on the shoulder.

“We’ll drop you both off at home after this, and we’ll meet the others up for the karaoke so you guys get some alone time.” She smiled politely. “Even if you guys are still up for it, I think it maybe for the best, you need to cool off and have some downtime.”

“Thanks, But I think we’ll be alri-”

“No butts on this one Yasuda. Infact Ryan suggested it.” She said calmly. “It’s up to you, but I wouldn’t be leaving him on his own tonight. Cube’s words where rather nasty and we all heard them, these where nastier than ones she’s ever said to him to his face before. I think he’s worried that everyone may finally agree with her this time after every other time she wasted insulting him and the weight of every previous occasion Soda has told me about is showing up despite how much he’s trying to hide it. You can only put up a front for so long before the walls and floors all cave in around you and you have nothing left to support you from falling.”

Corn looked at her earnestly and then glanced over to where Beat was having one word conversations with Soda who was trying to cheer him up. Occasionally Beat would show a hint of a smile which only encouraged Soda’s buffoonery to annoy him even more. The time away at the beach may have gone, But at least Beat was more open about himself and his feelings because of it and it was showing through here and there. Everyone else was noticing it more too, and where trying to help unburden them, like he had done with all of theirs for quite a few years. If you had a problem Corn and Gum used to tell everyone, Beat’s the go-to guy, as he’ll help you sort it all out. It never actually occurred to them that years later, they’d have to help him out with his and the fact that he had problems had become news to them over the last year or two had made them realise that even the most solid rock can be grounded into a pile of pebbles over time. Gum used to have this joke with Corn that if the GG’s where a mine of precious stones, full of diamonds, gold and iron, Beat would be that funny coloured Opal that while not as shinny as the others, was the most valuable and rare of the lot. It came as a surprise to him that even now, he would have had to agree with her on that.

“Do you have any idea what made him so upset?” She asked, bring Corn back to the real world.

He shook his head. “No. But I bet I have some idea. It would have been about me and him; that is for certain, as he wouldn’t get upset if it was only aimed at himself. Something private that shouldn’t be talked about, regardless if you know. I will ask Ryth and Combo later, they will tell me even if he won’t.”

“You must be glad that you are now allowed some privacy in your own place now.”

“Yeah. You have no idea how little there is when you and your friends all live so close together.” Corn said softly. “It will be nice not to have everyone know everything for once.”

 

Beat opened the door to the house and Corn followed him inside. There was no words spoken on the car ride back, Beat’s clear emotional distress all big and pink hung around the air between them.

“I’m just going to take a shower,” He mumbled. “I might feel a little better under the cold water for a while.”

Corn just nodded and watched him heading the general direction of the house’s second bathroom. Corn was a little unsure what to do here, he’d never felt an awkwardness like this before. Was it because they were now a couple and Beat was more open to him? Or was it that Beat had always been like this and Corn was only just noticing? After having that emotionless relationship with Yo-yo where it was no strings attached, this was venturing out into uncharted territory. He wanted more emotional involvement, he really did, but was he really ready for it?

He walked down the hall to their shared room and unrolled the mattresses, fluffing them out and making some temporary beds on the floor. As an afterthought, he stripped them, pushed the mattresses together and remade it as if it was double bed on the floor. He sat down in the middle of them, unsure what to do next. No it wasn’t that he was unsure, he damn knew what he should be doing and just wasn’t doing it. He cursed himself and stood up rather hurriedly, almost falling back over himself and the boxes that where still full of their stuff. Something fell at his feet from the box, and he leaned down to pick it up. It wasn’t anything special, just a woollen pompom stress ball in bright blues and greens. Ryth at one stage had taken up knitting when things got very quiet during the winter and Beat, not one to hang around with nothing to do, had been helping her make little pompoms for the beanies she had made. The scarfs and the hats where either too small or too big, but everyone accepted them as gifts anyway. Corn remembers the making of this one in particular and why it never got attached to any hats, and instead was just pinned to his jacket when they went to face down the immortals. Beat had been making them without problems all day, till he got his hands tangled in this one and when Corn tried to cut him free, accidently sliced the tip off one of his fingers. He had never seen the guy cry before and was pretty damn close to it when he swore. Corn had grabbed his finger without thinking about it and put it in his own mouth to stop the bleeding till Ryth got a towel to cover up the wound. It made Corn smile, they were only mates then, and seeing how red Beat went when Corn just reacted was enough to make Corn smile a little now while playing with its soft nylon. He knew what he had to do; he had done it before, without thinking. Maybe he had been thinking too much when he should be doing something right about now.

He walked back down the hall to the bathroom Beat had entered. There was the sound of running water, but no sound of someone washing, as the water didn’t have that heavy sloshing noise to it when it was full of suds. He opened the door carefully to reveal the shower door open, with one of Beat’s legs sticking out of it. He was too drained to stand, so he’d just sat at the bottom and just let the cold water run over him to cool him down. Corn felt a lump in his throat at the sight, He never once even considered Beat all wet to be rather exciting. Usually when it was time to take showers, they had to use public bath houses and Beat was never with them, having to be shut into another area where they usually separated people into when they had a lot of full body tattoos. He paused to rethink the situation. No, he told himself inside his head, I’m not going to get stupid here and let my body do all the talking. I need to use my heart here and nothing else.

A small sob cut though anything he had been pondering. It was barely noticeable under the running water, but it was there. Corn closed the bathroom door and peered around the shower door. Beat was still wearing the singlet and his boxers, trying to hide his tears and his sobbing under the spray. Ignoring the fact he was still fully clothed, Corn squeezed into the shower beside Beat and cuddled him close, burring Beat’s head into his chest. He could feel the emotion pouring out of his lover, and every tear that was being shed was causing his whole slender frame to shake. Corn could remember the very first time he had seen Beat like this, when they had taken out the Chinese dragon from the first time Goji tried to take over Tokyo-to. They’d all been burnt pretty bad, Beat more so than the others, but when the dragon crashed through and torched the only escape route in or out of the building and blocked Beat in with it and shutting the others out, the injuries the others sustained he couldn’t stop and prevent when the dragon had shut them out had not only affected him badly, it also gave him the strength to take it out. When they managed to get into him, he was in such a bad state; they couldn’t take him with them to get to Goji himself. That in itself was enough to make him feel weak and unneeded, and his recovery from those injuries took far longer as he couldn’t bring himself to eat, and in the end they had to force something into him because it was that or watching him willingly starve himself to death. Beat had completely broke down then, they had never seen so many tears shed before. Beat was usually the strong one of the GG’s and when he falls apart, the GG’s fall apart, as there is no one to hold them together. Corn took over as gang leader then as it was clear the pressure was just too much for the red head at the time, and in one way was the best decision they made, freeing a lot of weight off his shoulders. Corn had seen him break a few more times since then, showing that Beat wasn’t as strong as everyone thought he was and needed the same help when things went bad.

Corn just held him tight, despite starting to feel a chill down his spine from being under the water for so long. He really wanted to know what had been said now, as this wasn’t normal at all.

“ACHOO!”

Beat pulled out of Corn’s grasp and rubbed his eyes, though it was a fruitless enterprise under the water spray.

“You feeling alright?”

“No.” Beat’s voice replied sounding like dirty gravel on tarmac. “But a little better than a few hours ago.” He wrapped his arms around Corn. “Thankyou.”

“That’s what I’m here for. If you ever feel like that again I want you to at least talk to me, or failing that, cry on my shoulder. I don’t like seeing you fall apart at all, it’s not like you.” Corn said softly.

“I don’t think you know me very well then.” Beat squeezed him tight. “It happens more than you guys know.”

“Well then I’m going to make sure I know you better by having you come to me when you feel like that. I know I can’t fix it, but I do want to try and make it better.” Corn kissed him. “I love you too much to have you go through these things on your own when you shouldn’t have to.”  Corn sneezed again. “Can we at least go somewhere a little less wet? I don’t think it’s good for either of us to go from extreme heat to extreme cold so suddenly.”

“Well I could always turn the hot tap on.” Beat chuckled, relived his feelings now back in check. “I don’t feel like getting out just yet.”

“Oh?” Corn was taken by surprise. “Why’s that?”

“Because you’re here with me, and there’s no other place I’d rather be.”

“Well I share the same feelings, but I’d rather not get a cold from being soaking wet under freezing water.”

Beat reached up and fumbled the hot tap on, and Corn got full blast of the hot water.

“Turn it off! Turn it off!”

“Pfftt Hahahahaha!” Beat laughed as he reached up to turn the hot water down a few notches till it was only a luke warm stream coming through.

“It doesn’t matter much,” Corn said after a few moments. “My clothes are retaining all the cold water.”

“Well I can fix that.” Beat chuckled. “You’d have to let me take them off you.” He tried standing up, but being tall and the shower being so small made moving around without treading on Corn rather difficult. He offered to help Corn up and he also managed to stand up in a similar fashion, the move making them have more space to at least press each other against the other side of the shower with very little effort. Corn brought Beat’s face down towards his and kissed him, the water making the feel of his skin softer and moister to touch. The red heads hands had lightly slid under the shirt that was weighing Corn down and slowly and teasingly, popped open the first two buttons. His hands snaked in under the shirt further, tickling Corn’s chest and his sides, causing him to squirm. Corn hand where making headway in a similar fashion, they had slipped into the low sides of the singlet Beat was wearing and where stroking tenderly over his lily white skin, feeling the slight raised areas where his rib showed and where tight, real practical muscles lay. Corn could feel his lover shiver under his touch, so he changed tactic and moved his hands under the singlet and slowly peeled it off Beat’s body, though the other was nice enough to bend down so Corn could pull the wet clothing over his head. Corn threw the wet clothes down with a satisfied slop just outside the shower door which they had left open, water now having flooded most of the bathroom by now.

Corn pressed a finger to Beat’s lips. “I want you to take me, in the same way you get over protective and a little possessive in front of everyone.”

For a second, Beat’s brow furrowed. “I don’t quite get what you mean.”

“Before when you yelled at Cube, I liked it.. maybe more than I should have. I don’t quite know what you said, but I know you only get mad like that when someone says something about another person. I guess I was a little turned on.” Corn admitted. “I couldn’t help it, for a second, you made me well shiver. It was so like you, and yet, so unlike you as you rarely get so passionately involved in something other than your graffiti paintings.”

Beat blushed and almost matched the shade of his hair. “I don’t know, I guess I could…but I don’t want to hurt you or anything if I do something stupid.”

“I won’t let it come to that. If it’s too much, I’ll just take over alright? Besides, I wasn’t joking before this afternoon about how good you looked on top. I just would like you to prove it.” Corn knew he was pushing it, but he really wanted to swing Beat’s whole mood around. The guy was far from weak in any sense except emotionally, and he wanted some of those strengths that he admired to be brought out anytime the other was at a low point. Getting him to do so however might take more persuading than he realised.

“Alright, I’ll give it a shot, but I can’t promise anything.” Beat glanced away shyly. Corn touched the side of his face and brought it back round for another long kiss.

“I trust you. You’re the only person I’ve ever told that. I have always believed and trusted you to be there no matter what happens or what we do out there when times are tough. I want to be able to have you do the same when it comes to me too.” Corn pulled Beat in close and held him tight.

“I do, trust you. I’m just not used to having someone so close to me as you are and I’m more afraid of myself than I’ve ever been before. You know that I’ll blindly follow you wherever you go and into a lot of places some people never come out of again.” Beat tried to step back but was pressed pretty hard against the tiles. He looked into Corn’s blue eyes, something he always found hard to do as he held him with such high regard and respect over the years, to get used to the idea that he was seen on the same level as anyone else, let alone by Corn was enough to make him a little flighty when the butterflies filled his stomach. “I respect you so much, I’m always afraid that I’m going to lose the respect I’ve earned so fast just by well, stuffing up really. I don’t want to push you away from me as I like you near me and beside me, I’m scared that I’m some kind of monster that if you get too close to you won’t want to know me anymore.”

“If you’re a monster, then you’re going to be MY monster.” Corn poked Beat hard in his furry chest. “I can live with that. I want to live with that. I’d be damned if you or anyone else tries to tell me what to think about you and tell me why I shouldn’t love you.” Corn composed himself. Don’t get mad, he tried to warn his inner leader. With some of the stuff he had heard Beat being called over the years from the GG’s and other gangs, there was little to no surprise he had the self-ego of mud.

“Let’s start again.” Corn showed a soft and inviting smile. “I want you to treat me as yours, and bring me closer to you like you really want to.”

Beat hesitated at first, then brought Corn into several short repeated kisses, that where feathery and light, while his hands peeled some of Corn’s shirt off his shoulders. He broke of the lips to move his kisses and his tongue down the neck and along the fine structure of Corn’s collar bone. Corn’s hands where stroking Beat’s chest lovingly, encouraging him along, and giving Corn a mild entertainment in how Beat’s hair, despite being wet, was not entirely plastered onto his body, and was slightly raised off the skin as water trickled across it. Corn also liked the way the tattoos shone on the skin and how they looked freshly painted, tracing his fingertips along some of the patterns and shapes they showed.

Buttons where undone slowly, and hands moved into stroke around the skin beneath them. Corn winced. He had forgotten all about the sunburn at the pool. He was quick to grab Beat’s hand before they jerked way.

“Sunburn.” Corn purred, making sure Beat’s hands where firmly placed back on his sides. “Don’t you dare stop ‘cause I’m a wuss.”

It didn’t stop Beat being more careful though, as Corn could feel his fingers barely touching the skin around the sides and across his back under the shirt. This made him shudder, he didn’t need beat to be completely touching him to give him those same ticklish feelings, just the thought that he was not even millimetres off touching it was like feeling a warm breath was being brushed and blown against it. Beat’s lips moved lower, exploring the nape of the chest cavity and down the middle, the water that was drizzling down Corn’s torso inspired him to lap it up off his body, and the blonde shivered and shook, leaning against the glass before he went weak at the knees. He couldn’t get onto his hutches, not right now, as Beat had to kneel to be able to reach his belly button with little nips and licks, and there wasn’t room for him to really be down there let alone both of them together.

Corn was sure now the steam was making it hard to breathe, as he was panting harder the more his lover explored. He ran his fingers through Beat’s hair, brushing it all back out of his face where the water had slicked it, exposing those long lashes that frame Beat’s eyes that where focused only on teasing and taunting him. He was sure there was a flicker of green as Beat looked upwards briefly, though Corn was unsure as to why. Maybe he was waiting to see my reaction? Or maybe he was setting me up for something that he’s going to do next? Corn was going red in the face and couldn’t care; this was as exciting as it had ever been. He wasn’t a virgin and Beat fully knew that and also who he used to be with before the two of them went on that holiday away to talk things out and try and break the vicious cycle that had been brewing between them of something that would have hurt Corn in the long run. So this teasing was as far as Corn could see, was a semi-worthwhile punishment, although he’d never say that openly as he knew Beat would most likely not do it again.

They flickered up again and met his blues, and he could see full intent in them, but could also see some doubt. It was that part of uncharted territory, Beat had always wanted to finally go there with someone he cared about one day, but was unsure how to go about it. He kissed just under Corns belly button, and slid his hands up the legs of his shorts. He wasn’t surprised to find Corn was not wearing underwear, but still gave him a dirty look. Those shorts he was wearing where his after all and he’d had at least thought Corn would have some sense when borrowing other’s things. Corn exhaled deeply with a squeak when Beat dug his fingernails into the soft tissue of his backside, which signalled his annoyance and the plain fact Corn should be wearing underpants.

“Hey what was thauhhh….” Corn’s small complaint was groaned out. While too busy focusing on the sharp pain of his lover’s nails, he hadn’t noticed Beat had found something else and had gained the courage to continue this round of pleasure torture. Corn’s right hand gripped onto Beat’s shoulder while the other tangled itself in his hair. He couldn’t stand straight anymore, laying his back flat on the glass for support while Beat continued to make him loose whatever common sense he still held onto.

“Nuh…uh…uh…” Corn’s voice panted. Beat briefly paused for a quick breather and continued to caress around the waist with his fingers. Having stuff in the back of your throat move involuntarily was something Beat had to be very careful of, the last think he wanted to do was make a mistake when he was so close to sending the blonde into ecstasy. He moved to try again, Corn this time forgetting about the glass and banging his head against it, the pleasure outweighing the pain that was located there.

“Ry, that’s … tha…uhhhh….huhhhh..uh..” Corn couldn’t articulate any sentence any more, his whole body fighting the urge to just give out. Eventually, he would have no choice in the matter but he was going to hold out as long as he could to make it last.

Then Beat did something unexpected that made him give out. Beat pulled away and nipped at the softest part that had been exposed down there, the sheer thrill of it made all that was building up leave Corn and half, falling on top of, half collapsing into Beat’s waiting arms; who was trying to steady him before he was crushed.

There was nothing spoken for a few minutes, until Beat had to end the silence. “My knees really hurt.”

Corn, who had finally managed to pull his head from the clouds realised that the redhead had been on his knees in a very awkward position the whole time. Corn stood up as straight as he could and helped beat off the bottom, though there was a false start when Beat’s head hit one of the tap handles and then his shoulder on the second attempt. The shower had not been really designed for two people of their heights to squeeze in together.

“I am going to really rethink the next place we do this.” Beat swore, holding the back of his head and rubbing his bruised shoulder. Corn had stopped the water running and had stepped out of the shower into a huge pool of water.

“Before that I think we have to do a bit of house cleaning.” Corn added. “I’ll go get the mop, and you take all the wet clothes and ring them out so we can wash them.” It had occurred to him that he didn’t get a chance to fix Beat up in the same way either. “Damn! What about you? I owe you for all of that.”

Beat had picked up his singlet top off the floor and was wringing it out over the sink. He shrugged. “You don’t owe me anything.” He smiled softly. “I was more than happy to do that. I wanted to actually, just don’t expect it all the time, I was pretty nervous.” Corn couldn’t see the expression of content on his face with his back to him. “Shirt and shorts please.”

Corn, who had been staring at the back of Beat let his face drop. “You expect me to walk around naked?”

“Oh? What happened to make the exhibitionist so embarrassed?” there was a deep-throated chuckle. “It’s not like I haven’t seen everything before, even after just now.”

Corn growled and Beat smiled to himself. “Your own fault for not wearing any underwear.”

There was the sound of heavy wet clothes landing on the floor and being picked up. Beat turned around to take them off him, grinning from ear to ear. “That wasn’t so hard now was it?” he pulled Corn into a deep kiss. “If I could keep you like that all night I would.” He turned back around to wring them out.

Corn couldn’t help but let a smile cross his lips. The old Beat he knew was back, even if it was for a short while. He touched Beat’s back before leaving the bathroom to find some pants and retrieve a mop. Corn didn’t often see the other skater’s bare back, it was always covered in a shirt or something, and the few times Corn had seen him without any clothes it was usually from the front. He promised himself that he’d get to see it more often, as the tattoo that spread over his shoulders and down his spine was not only unique and unusual, it was beautiful and symbolic. Rat lantern he had heard Beat call it once, possibly the first time Corn had seen it. It was a large giant red rat that adored the spine and in its tail which ended further down was a Chinese lantern which was lit. Around the shoulders where the rat’s wings, which where a mixture of bird and angelic appearance that looked like the where actually moving when he moved his shoulder blades. Corn adored it and hated it when Beat had to hide it.

He also wasn’t going to ask Beat where he had learned to tease either. That was something Yo-yo had never been able to do without making a big deal song and dance and Corn himself had never actually tried. Just because Beat had been a virgin before this afternoon, didn’t mean he had relationships before he was a member of the GG’s. Corn tried to shut that idea out, as the thought of Beat doing that to someone else was entirely unthinkable.

He came back in a pair of his own shorts with the mop and was surprised to find the floor was less waterlogged. Beat had not only wrung out the shirts, but had reused them to get the excess water. He could help himself he had to ask Beat where the hell he learned to tease like he did.

“Ry, I have to ask, I don’t mean to sound rude or anything, I just got to know…”

“Hmm?” Beat squeezed the last of the water out of the clothes and was now spreading them out along the rim of the bathtub top let the dry. “Know what?”

“Where did you learn to.. you know… do that before.” Corn was not very good at mentioning sex as a topic of conversation as a general rule; it made things when they were living in the garage so much simpler.

Beat started to laugh. “From a book, love, from a book.” He straightened up. “Like you, I realised I wasn’t into girls after a few dates that didn’t go too well. It’s not like we didn’t try, I just really couldn’t find any attractive in that way. This was back in highschool mind, so long before I came to Japan. I did have a bad crush on a year 12 student though. He was always nice to me for some reason and I at the time wanted it to be more than that.” He took the mop off Corn and started on what was left on the floor while he talked. It made it a bit easier to stop him from blushing and being embarrassed. “He was worried when I told him all these girls I had were not working out and thought I had issues with the idea of sex in general. He used to lend me books and occasionally dirty magazines, all with girls with these huge boobs and whatever. I felt so bad I couldn’t tell him it was the guys that made me want to masturbate more than anything else. When people started finding out I was gay, I was desperate to get out of there. My parents where open about it insofar as helping me get a scholarship to finish studying here overseas. “When my visa expired and the scholarship fell through and left me stranded, well you kind of know all the rest.” Beat indicated the bucket to be put on the floor, Corn obliged; still fascinated he had never heard this story before. Beat proceeded to wring the mop out before continuing. “You have no idea how easy it is to find comics and magazines here in relation to men doing it together its crazy. You have maybe twice as many as basic standard hetro porn and other weirder ones I had never even heard of till I came here. It sounds funny, but I was obsessed with a lot of the yaoi stuff and was always afraid one of you guys would find them and call me out, which even though it didn’t come out that way, Gum accidently telling everybody why I turned her down was bad enough. I’ve always wanted to see if the stuff I always read about was true, and I guess when you have the person you really love and want to share it with it can.”

Satisfied that the floor was no longer as wet as it was, he gave Corn the mop back and smiled. “All yours.” Before brushing past him to acquire some dry boxer shorts. Corn looked around the small bathroom again just to be sure it was water free and poured the excess from the bucket down the bath.

He was in the middle of putting the things away in the laundry cupboard when he could hear a grunt come from their shared room. Corn didn’t really think much of it; Beat probably just flopped down on the makeshift bed and made a sound as he felt the floor through the mattresses. Corn figured he maybe able to get something to drink and by the time he came back Beat would have dozed off. He hoped anyway, at least one of them would be tired after today.

He didn’t expect to come back to the room to a lot of heavy panting. Beat wasn’t facing him when Corn closed the door after entering, and there was no way the guy would have known he was there for the headphones he was wearing and the music he was listening to blocked out most, if not all sound. Corn knew that sound of panting anywhere and couldn’t help but smile and shake his head. Favour return unneeded? Yeah right Beat. Corn knew there was something off about the way he handed him the stuff back to put away. After teasing and taunting Corn and then talking openly about himself and all the dirty magazines and things, it didn’t take a genius to make the connection that the guy still needed to get some sort of relief. Corn did however find this little attempt to right himself without Corn knowing about it rather sweet though, trying to be all tough about just being satisfied giving his lover a lot of special attention which didn’t have to come back to him.

Corn placed his glass of water down on an unopened box and quietly sat down behind Beat and gently ran his fingers down his back and around the sides, slowly making their way around the front. Beat froze, and despite not being able to see his face from behind, Corn knew he was feeling a lot of sudden guilt for being caught out. He couldn’t go anywhere though, Corn had wrapped himself around his lover tightly so even if he felt like a deer in a car’s headlights there was no escape from the embrace.

Corn ran his fingers along Beat’s back again and lifted one side of the headphones away from his ear so he could at least whisper into it. “Nice try, being noble is one thing, but you’re a terrible liar.” His other hand snaked around Beat’s stomach and slowly made its way downwards.

“I didn’t lie at all, I really didn’t.” Beat’s eyes where shut pretty tight as he was really flushed from the sudden embarrassment. “I just couldn’t stop thinking about you that’s all. You were so beautiful under the water and I just got excited. Please don’t think ill of me.”

“Why would I?” Corn purred. “I think it’s sweet that you were being so selfless before even though you wanted it just as much.” His hand found what it was exploring for and Beat let out a sharp gasp.” But next time if you really still need it, you just come and ask me alright? I’m more than happy to oblige.” He gave Beat a bit of a squeeze, which got him an unusual squeak out of him in response as his back arched, pressing himself into the smaller blonde. This made Corn’s smile get wider, as not only can his lover take the lead and tease the living daylights out of him, he was also very vulnerable and too exposed to fight back when the tables had been turned. Corn would if asked happily admit that he liked it a lot, the fact that he had so much influence over someone and how they just willingly opened up to him and have him control the situation. Something, he realised as well that could easily be abused, and with someone as open and trusting as Beat, he was going to make sure he never took advantage of it. It wouldn’t not only hurt him, but Corn would never be able to find another lover who would willingly give the same sort of unthinking devotion in return. “Just relax,” he whispered, his hot breath sending tingles down Beat’s frame, “Enjoy it. I want you to. I love you.” He let go of the headset so it covered Beat’s ear again, the music Corn had temporally heard vanishing, allowing his now free hand to wrap around and gently stroke Beat’s sides and across his chest. He kissed Beat’s shoulders and along the neckline, his hands making sure they were slow moving and purposeful, careful not to make things too sudden, if the red head bucked suddenly now, Corn would have most, if not all his teeth knocked out. The sounds Beat was making where enough to make him want to keep the pace steady also; he’d never heard such funny little noises in such unusual octaves. They were not grunts or moans, but little squeaks and purrs which where all the more encouraging and entertaining to listen too. Corn knew he was having far too much fun with this, the reactions he was getting to his actions where more surprising than he had hoped. He gently squeezed again, this time making Beat make something that sounded a bit like a yelp and a cry, and have one of the redhead’s arms fling out in an effort to try and grab Corn from behind him. He failed, and gripped the sheets, pulling them tight as Corn increase the pressure slightly; another yelp coupled with an uncontrolled body jolt backwards indicated that he had been teased a little too much.

“Plea-Ese!” Beat’s voice couldn’t hide the sounds he was making. The mixture of his deep voice with higher sounding yelps was a sure sign things where becoming too intense for him. “Yas-U! ah!”

Corns free hand, slid up Beat’s neck and rested a few fingers into his open mouth. At this point Beat was shaking so badly, he actually bit down hard on Corn’s fingers, hoping he’d get the message and just finish him already.

“Hey! OW!” Corn jerked his hand way in fright and at the same time had squeezed Beat really hard with the other hand. Beat let out another yelp, however this time it was one of relief, as that final amount of pressure was enough to release all the build-up that was inside of the taller skater. Listless, he sank deep into Corn’s embrace. His heart was pounding, threating to leap out of his chest.

“Why did you bite me?” Corn grumped. His expression changed somewhat when he stopped looking at the bite marks across his knuckles and at Beat’s face as the redhead had slided down so his head now rested in Corn’s lap. Beat was still panting really hard, the colour of his cheeks looked like he’d run several miles. His face was pretty ashen, the dark marks that where usually under his eyes where even darker, and the light scars just under the left one where more visible than before. Maybe he went a little too far, Beat had only just gotten over heat exhaustion from the afternoon and had been pretty sick and the small niggling fact he was still a virgin until they first put stuff in this room. It had been a very intense day and maybe teasing him the way he did was a little overboard. “I’m sorry. I really didn’t mean to overdo it. I thought you were really cute when you were making those sounds.” Corn brushed some of Beat’s hair, not entirely fussed by the lack or reaction.

“Love you…” Beat mumbled softly, oblivious to the words Corn had just spoken, music still blaring in his eardrums. Corn took a double take before realising this fact and feeling rather stupid for forgetting about them. Beat seemed unaffected by it, he was happy to drift off to sleep then and there.

 

Sunlight filtered into the room and rested upon them through the blinds. It had cooled off quite a lot over night, but not so much as to indicate that it was going to be a scorcher the next day. Beat yawned and nuzzled into Corn’s chest, not really wanting to get up. It was safe there just lying in his arms, he had never felt like someone had really cared much about him until recently and wasn’t about to let that feeling go. Corn had revoked him of his headphones at some stage during the night so waking up to the sound of birds was not something he had done since leaving home.

“Bloody birds…” he muttered, slowly getting up and slipping out of Corn’s still sleeping embrace. He didn’t know how the hell the blonde could sleep right through sounds that whereas piercing as that. He sat up and crawled over to one of the boxes that had his clothes in and as a second thought of inspiration, decided to fold and put them away in the wardrobe while looking for stuff to wear. After the other day he wasn’t going to waste time on GG business, so opting for something normal should suffice. He grabbed a sleeveless hoodie that was bright yellow and pulled it on, grabbed some clean boxers and some oversized shorts that just cut off under the knees. Corn still hadn’t moved, so Beat just left him alone, shrugging and closing the bedroom door behind him.

Walking into the kitchen he could hear a worried sounding discussion emerging from the living room. Not one to stand around when something was going on, he poured a glass of water from the tap before heading into the other room. Soda spotted him and was quick to grab Beat and drag him over. Combo was pacing about the room and Soda’s wife was looking really worried.

“Have you checked all her friends from school? Maybe she went home with one of them?”

“No. she didn’t I’ve asked around most of the parents of her friends. I’ve asked teachers, I’ve even had to go to the police, and that was my last resort.” Combo rumbled his pacing getting more frantic. “The last thing I want to even think of is some gang or some monster has my little girl.”

“Stephanie is missing?”

Combo stopped pacing at the sound of Beat’s voice. “Yes, since this morning. Her classes got cancelled for the day, and I went back to pick her up but she’s vanished.” Stephanie was Combo’s daughter who they brought over from New York after Goji fell the first time. It was hell trying to get Combo full citizenship status, but well worth it as he was able to be reunited with his daughter, who had been living with her grandparents while Combo was out of the country. Little was known about his wife or if they were actually married, no one wanted to pry into that can of worms unless they were sure they’d come out of it alive. Beat liked little Stephanie a lot when Combo had brought her around on occasion, Him and Ryth had unofficial uncle and auntie status as she loved playing with them a lot.

“Fuck.” Beat swore. “We’ll do our own search. She goes to school in the Shibuya prefecture right?” Beat did not trust the police to find their own arse with a map and a set of directions.

“Benten-Cho”

“Right, We’ll start looking there. I know a few places down that way the kids still hang out, she may be just playing with some friends. There’s also that playground down near the bus terminals in Shibuya and that other one in Kogane-Cho.” He paused in thought. “Soda, when Corn wakes up, can you and him go down to the Fortified residential zone and snoop around? I think there’s a few hang outs around there too she could have wandered with friends. Let’s hope she’s not down that way for all our sakes.” The fortified residential zone gave Beat the shivers. The place was so cramped, people living in shipping containers as they were so poor and barely scrapped a living and turf that also belonged and is still controlled by the Golden Rhinos. They were Beat’s number one fans, in a sense that he was more likely to be skinned alive than anyone else if he set foot in the joint. People who live a life of real organised crime do not forget who topped the big man off while trying to take over the city very well.

“Combo, I want you to take Gum, Jazz and Yo-yo to scour Shibuya, and’ I’ll get Boogie and Clutch to give a sweep of Kogane, and Me and Ryth will see if we can find anything in Benten, There’s so many construction sites down there where kids get into I’d hate myself if anything hurt her.” Beat bounded for the door to grab his skates so he could get down to the prefecture as soon as he could, stopping before adding, “We’ll let you know if we find anything. There’s no way we’re going to give up when one of our own goes missing.” And with that, he was out the door and contacting the others on the communication watches they all had.

Soda nodded. “I’ll just wake Corn up shall I?” Combo and Kodachi exchanged glances, but never the less moved into action.

The sun beat down heavy and hard, the heat causing the dust and the mud to crackle in the Construction zones of Benten-Cho. Work had stopped for the day, it was too hot to build anything let alone operate heavy machinery. Heat could be seen visually off metal and steel. Ryth Had met up with Beat, but since it was a hot day, had a lot less of her usual attire on. For a start, she may as well have been topless, the tiny bikini top barley covering much, although Ryth didn’t have much there to really hide away. She also wore a pair of baby blue short shorts which left little to nothing of the imagination with her long stripy stockings and her ice blue skates. Beat didn’t comment of course, as he knew by doing so next time she’d help out she’d show up with nothing on what so ever just to piss him off. Beat himself was annoyed he didn’t grab his sunnies before heading out, being blinded by shiny sheets of corrugated iron roofing was not his idea of helpfulness in an emergency.

“We’ve been searching for a few hours and sorry but we should really get out of the sun for a few minutes.” Ryth grabbed Beat by the arm and tried to drag him over into the shade. “We’re both pretty burnt, and the others will say something if either one of us passes out in the sun.”

Beat wasn’t very easy to budge. “Where haven’t we looked Ryth?” he asked, mostly to himself. “We re-checked the school, the apartment blocks over on 53rd and 79th streets, up all the alleyways in the factory districts and all the new construction sites. What have we missed?” he rubbed some of the sweat off his forehead and wiped it down his sleeveless hoodie. “We’ve gone in almost every single shop around this area and found nothing.” In the end he gave in to her relentless tugging of his shirt and both ducked into the shade of an alleyway that was flanked by huge housing condominiums which were either barely lived in, or condemned for actual habitation. Goji and his goon squad has seen to that when they were in power and only slowly was any life coming back to Benten after all the mass killings in the area. Ryth found a small vender stand that had long since been abandoned, but never the less still had a few drinks in the stand near the bottom that while no longer cold, had at least not turned green with agley. She handed him one of the bottles and completely sculled the one she had, water everywhere down her neck and front. She didn’t care, it was better than being covered in sweat. Beat was just reading the label on the one she gave him, his mind ticking away, the clogs and gears of usual thoughts whirring, trying to think of places they had not thought of. He was a little way off, just mindlessly rolling down the alley. Ryth dug around to find another bottle and grinning at her little victory she shouted.

“AH HA! I have you - EEEK!” the screech that came from her was loud; someone or something had just grabbed her around the waist and yanked her out of the storage box.

“Ryth?” beat spun around in his skates and could see the short spunky girl being man handled by a big hulking shape of a man. It couldn’t have been Poison Jam, they had long since found new turf that they were more proud of and far away from any wandering GG. “HEY! Let her-” he started to shout as he was about to break into a fast running skate towards her, but didn’t even get two steps as something very hard clipped him around the back of the head. He went down, but tried to get back up, and failed to see the second swing to the side of the head with something metallic in nature, laying him out flat.

 

Corn and Soda had spent hours hunting around the fortified residential area. There really wasn’t much there other than hundreds of homeless. Both of them had been propositioned on numerous occasions by ladies of the night, drug dealers and people selling children up for things that made their skin crawl. The only good thing you could do to this area was light it with a match, which would not only have improved the area environmentally, but socially too.

They’d found an uncrowded area near a statue of Goji which had been adored my mostly pigeon droppings and unprofessional attempts at graffiti vandalism to see if they could get a check in with the others.

“This is Corn, GG’s come in. What’s the word?”

There was some static and Gum’s voice came over. “This is Gum, We’ve scoured the whole park and the bus terminals and all the shops in the surrounds. No sign of little Stephanie.”

“Same goes for Kogane-cho.” Clutch’s voice came in good and strong. “We even dug in and trying getting information out of those bloody noise tanks and still bupkis.” There was a brief pause. “We did find out there was some new gang in the area though heading for the unused Benten turf from the Loveshockers, and they’re usually a good sticker for useful information.”

“That might be useful,” Corn replied. “Beat, Ryth did you hear any of that?”

There was no answer. “Beat? Ryth? Are you there?” Corn’s voice faltered. There was nothing but static.

 

“Come in Ryan and Ryth! Are you there?”

Ryth watched as their wrist watch communicators where being swung, dangling off a hook on the far end of the little room. Her arms where bound behind her back; elbow to wrist, her feet where tied and she was gagged. All she could do was listen as Corn shouted their names. Stephanie, Combos daughter was also tied up and was in tears, being eight years old and at the hands of captures wasn’t the most ideal situation; she was bubbling and sobbing uncontrollably. Ryth wished she could go over and hug her and tell her everything was going to be alright, though the sight of her and Beat being thrown in there with her would have freighted the poor girl even more. Ryth glanced at the other side of the room where they just dumped the other skater unceremoniously in the corner, and after tying him up, just left him there to lie in his own blood which was all from the head injury where they struck him. He had not regained any form of conciseness, and Ryth was worried that he may not be breathing and have some bad head trauma. He had his arms tied infront of him and his leg bounded like Ryths, but they were at least nice enough not to gag him save incase he swallowed his own tongue.

“Ryth this isn’t a joke, this is serious, I don’t know if Ryan explain-” the voice she could hear stopped mid-sentence. “Is there something wrong? Guys are you all right?”

A figure entered the room, though it was hard to make out in the dank and dark. It grabbed one of the communicators and then sat down on the bare table that was in the middle. Corn’s voice filtered through again, although this time he got an answer that sent chills down his spine.

 

“Hello GG’s.”

Corn fell silent. Soda also stared at the wrist com with surprise. The other GG’s probably did to when they heard it. The voice was clearly female, though it was hard to make out.

“Who is this?” Corn asked. It was a stupid question, but at least one that would be answered.

“A friend. Well… no, not really.” The voice answered. “I have however have two of yours. Are you missing anyone?”

“What have you done to them?” That was gum’s voice filtering through.

“Nothing…yet.” That last word was full of venom. “Though I’m sure we shall think of something; that is if one of them doesn’t do us the honour of bleeding to death first. Such a shame, but who cares if one less Poof is in the world eh?” there was strong emphasis on the insult, as if the person has a strong resentment.

Soda grabbed Corn and covered his mouth before the barrage of bad language filtered out. “Don’t let them get to you. If whoever it is does that they’ll not only get to us, but will hurt them even more than what they maybe.”

“Wise words. You’d pay to listen to them.” The voice purred seductively. “We will be in touch with a list of demands, if you do not oblige them, then we’ll get a little creative back here. We have three lives who are counting on you, or maybe just two and one we’ll end anyway for fun. I’m pretty sure the little girl is a screamer.” There was some creepy laughter before the signal died.

“They have my little girl, THE FUCKERS HAVE MY DAUGHTER!” Combo’s voice boomed through the com. whoever it was who was holding them captive had better hope they were 100% made of rubber as Combo this angry could quite easily smash every bone in the human body.

“Easy Combo.” Corn’s voice warned. “Gang we need to get back to base and work out what we’re going to do.”

“Easy for you to say,” Boogies voice retorted. “It’s not your flesh and blood that’s in trouble here.”

Corn just lost it. “They’ve got my fucking BOYFRIEND DAMN IT, my BEST FRIEND and KID who I like to think of as MY NIECE. They have almost everything I hold dear and I’m trying VERY HARD to not FUCKING WANT TO KILL SOMEONE FOR IT.”

 

The stranger was laughing at the commotion she could here over the wrist coms. That was the beauty of taking them off the prisoners and setting them so you had to press a button to talk. This would have her entertained all day. She stood up from her seat on the table and walked over to Stephanie and slapped her. “Stop crying you little wuss. If your daddy was smart he would have never had turned me down and chose to bring you here as a citizen instead of me.”  She walked over to Ryth, heels of her shoes clicking against the floorboards. “And what about you? Think you’re so awesome with your blue, hair, blue clothes and blue skates. Always under foot, always telling me off for having an opinion or being cruel. Funny how the shoe is on the other foot.” She leant down so Ryth could get a better glimpse of her. Ryth swallowed. Cube had a smile of pure malice. Why would she do all this, unless this was exacting revenge on them all for kicking her goth arse to the curb. Cube pulled back into the darkness and headed back for the door. She stopped briefly to swiftly kick Beat hard in the stomach several times, then after no response shrugged and laughed before locking them in the room again. Ryth swore, even though it came out muffled through the gag.

There was a cough, Ryth was expecting Stephanie to start crying again. They knew all about Combo and Cube and how she gave him the ultimatum, his daughter to live with him from America, or her. Wasn’t a competition really, they all knew he’d love to see his daughter more than anything else. Cube went a-wall on the GG’s and joined another gang, before deciding the GG’s where a better option to be hanging around with.

The cough was louder this time, but not from where Ryth had expected it. Stephanie caught onto it too.

“Uncle Ry!” she cried out, loud enough for anyone who maybe on the other side of the door to hear. The kid had the self-preservation of a duckling and the volume control of a pride of hungry lions.

The coughing became sort of a choking noise, but it did force Beat to actually shift position so he could cough up a lot of blood. Even with his hands tied, he managed to at least get up on all fours. “Where are we?” He managed to gargle out, before pushing himself up onto his knees.

“I want my DADDDDYY!” Stephanie screamed, this time she had started crying again.

 Beat was pretty sure his head might explode from the sound as his head was already feeling like a slushy over cooked risotto. “Shhh, it’s ok Steph, Ry’s here, everything’s going to be ok. Is Rythie here as well Steph? Can you tell me, I can’t see or hear her.”

“Yes, she’s over there.”

Beat got the feeling that she may have been pointing somewhere in the dark where he just couldn’t see. One eye was badly caked in blood so vision was highly impaired. He thought he’d try another tactic. “To the left or to the right, Steph?”

“Uh….”

Beat swore under his breath. He knew he shouldn’t have asked that. “OK, Steph, Is she to my right or my left?”

“Ohh!? This is a game?”

“Yes Steph, it’s a game. Can you please tell me?”

“Ummm. She’s on the…..Right.”

Beat started shuffling to his left. Ryth wanted to scream right about now as the damn kid was just screwing with him.

Beat paused when Stephanie started laughing. He was aware something was wrong, but played along. “Ha ha, Ok you got me. But no tricks this time. If you tell me where she is we can get out of here and go home, and maybe Rythie and I will shout you ice-cream. The one you like, Rocky road?”

“YAY! ICECREAM!” Stephanie trilled with excitement.      

“Right, heaps of it, enough to make you sick and have your dad be very, very angry with us for the next three weeks.”

“Ah ok.” Stephanie conceded. “She’s to the Left.”

It was a laughable shuffle, Beat was pretty sure his knees where scrapped and full of splinters for doing this, but it was the only way to move around. Stephanie was at least encouraging. “Getting warm….warmer.. HOT YAY! GO UNCLE RY!” she shouted victoriously when Beat bumped right into Ryth. He felt with his tied hands to pull the gag down from her mouth.

“I swear I will make sure Combo gives her a damn good spanking.” Ryth growled finally being able to talk.

“Nice to hear you’re ok too Ryth.” Beat frowned. “This week has just been getting better and better. How long was I out for?”

“Too long. You missed the big surprise.”

“And that was?”

“Cube’s behind all this.” Ryth broke the news.

“Not so much of a surprise after last night, but I guess I didn’t see it coming.” Beat admitted. “I always saw her as a sadist.”

“That was not funny.” Ryth snapped.

There was sniffing and crying from Stephanie again.

“Aww come on steph, please don’t cry.”

“But you’re fighting; I don’t like it when everyone fights.”

“Well how about we sing one of those silly songs you like?” Beat suggested. Anything was better than nothing and he couldn’t afford to make his headache any worse. Ryth then bit him. “Hey!?” he hissed. “What’s the big idea?”

“You want them to come back and pound the crap out of us?” Ryth hissed back.

“They will if she doesn’t stop crying”

Ryth sighed. “For once you may have a point.”

“Good, now instead of biting me, use those teeth of yours to loosen these damn knots. If I can get my hands free I can untie us and get us the hell out of here.”

                                                  

“So here’s the deal Garam, we’re going to use them as ransom to get Corn to quit and have the GG’s disbanded. Then because they think we’re stupid to believe them that they are no longer a gang, we’ll lure them to the ware house at the back of 99th street, like this…” Cube indicated where the GG’s will be trapped with some pins, “Lock them in and set the place alight. We could have a few explosives or at least lace it with some flammable chemicals. We’ll let the little brat go, But Ryth is going to watch me slowly kill Beat and then I’m going to torture her in the same way.”

“Are you sure you really want to go through with this Cube?” Garam looked slightly worried. Granted he wanted revenge and got to lay a few good thumps into Beat himself as payback with a metal pipe, but after listening to Cube’s twisted revenge plan, he was looking for the end of this ride.

She held the coms up and smiled a sinister grin. “Positive.”

 

There was quite a bit of arguing going on back at the GG garage about what they were going to do, Combo was becoming very hard to calm down as he was snapping at everything that was being said. Corn had his head in his hands, trying to think about the situation. The shouting was not helping, and he was not going to lose his temper. Out of all times he needed help in what to do; the person he relied on wasn’t there. Corn was good at telling people what they were supposed to do, but he wasn’t the one who was good with attack plans, sure Gum usually was good at launching them and doing all the violence involved, but she didn’t know how to organise a proper strike. That was usually Beat area of expertise. As a whole leadership wasn’t really a ‘one person does all types of roles’ in the GG’s though they did need to state a figure head as having three people in charge was confusing for a lot of the other members, but despite that it was still a three person spilt as there was some things they had to admit where too much for one individual. At the moment Gum was practically useless as help as she was too busy arguing back with Combo and Boogie and Jazz, while trying to calm everything down, had just purely been ignored along with Soda, who usually was automatically listened to. The realisation that he needed Beat to do the thinking and Ryth to do the anger control was starting to become all too clear.

There was a sound of static coming from his wrist communicator that made him look up. The watch was blinking, signalling an incoming message. Since no one else heard it, he clicked it in and responded.

“This is the GG’s” He said quietly. He was sure who ever it was on the other end could hear them all arguing and falling apart.

“This is the shadows.” The female voice they had heard earlier replied. “We have our demands.”

“Before you give them, I want to confirm something,” Corn asked. The others in the room where slowly realising something else was happening and Soda managed to wave them all into silence.

“Go on.”

“The safety of the captives, is that going to be assured? I will not negotiate if any harm comes to any of them.” Corn brushed a tear way before any of the other’s noticed. He couldn’t show any sign of weakness, not yet, not now when things where pretty bad.

“No harm will come to the girls.” The voice sounded sincere, though Corn would have said Yo-yo could make a lie sound more convincing. “As for the Ex-Leader, we’ve yet to decide.”

Corn swallowed hard. He knew something bad must have already happened to Beat for that answer to be said. He sighed. “What are the terms?” he asked. Upon hearing the enemies answer, Yo-yo and clutch had both sat down beside Corn, Clutch frowning and Yo-yo placing a hand on Corn’s knee for reassurance. After last night and how Corn had reacted to Cube and Garam, banishing them and kicking them off GG turf, they both had a pretty clear idea that Corn wasn’t going to take the news very well and try to hide it under the mask of leadership… a very bad idea as it means some really poor decision making, however, anything at this juncture would be not be a good suggestion.

“The terms? You disband the GG and hand over all your turf rights to the Shadows.” The voice paused. “You as the former leader of the gang exiled, and never to return to Tokyo-to.”

The tension in the GG garage was so thick you could slice it with a knife. Every ear was poised for Corn’s response.

“We will disband as you ask and all turf if yours.”

“WHAT?” Gum shouted loudly. She never thought she’d hear the day her brother was a defeatist. “HOW COULD YO-” Jazz tried to muffle Gum out by shoving a sock in her mouth.

“Good.”

“Will you relasese the captives?”

“Indeed. The rest of your collective can find them in the ware house at 578, 99th street. We have eyes watching every exit out of Tokyo-to so we will know if you have not left within 3 hours. If you do not leave by then, we will kill all the prisoners.”

“So be it.”            

The signal stopped and there was nothing but static again. Gum had shoved Jazz out of the way and started to yell at Corn. “YOU IDIOT! WHY DID YOU DO THAT FOR?”

“I agree with Gum, you caved way too easily.” Boogie scowled.

“We have three hours ladies, to get them out of there and to suss out wither it’s a trap or not.” Corn spoke calmly. “I do not trust these… ‘Shadows’ and I think it’s all lies and traps. Doesn’t matter what you tell them, it will always be the wrong answer. Agreeing to their terms just buys us time.” He rested his head in his hand again for a few minutes. “The more I think about it the more I think we’re being set up…but we also cannot afford to take that risk.”

“So what do you suppose we should do?” Yo-yo asked.

“Can we trace the signal?” Clutch asked, throwing the suggestion out there in case it was useful.

“No not really.” Corn hesitated. “Wait, we probably can. We can trace the watches on the GPS signals they throw out with Roboy.” Corn bolted out of the seat and ran into another room, followed by the rest of the gang at various speeds of enthusiasm.

Roboy was the GG’s joint project. They found him after the Noise Tanks dumped him in an alley, and had re-built him from scratch. Little did they know the Noise Tanks still could hack back into his systems leading up to them being able to waltz in and kidnap Yo-yo straight out of the garage. The hack had left Roboy in a barely functioning state and the GG’s didn’t have the right scourge of parts at their disposal to repair him any further than the basic computer program he ran on. Roboy, as it were still needed to be booted up and ran on an external machine, but the main soul that was Roboy refused to leave his mangled body for any other reason other than being helpful. Corn promised one day they’d fix him and make it so he was more or less in the world of the living again, as to have an AI believe it had a real physical body was one thing, but to have to believe it could haunt it as a ghost was another.

“Alright Roboy,” Corn said as he started madly typing some code into the robot’s computer mainframe, “We’re looking for two GPS signals similar to your built in wrist com. Can you locate them for us?”

The Robots screen flicked on and off in various coloured patterns and beeped a few times. A screen came up in the hologram hook up of the mainframe and projected it out so the whole gang could see. Only one blinking light was on the hologram of 99th street, and it was on the move.

“Ok so we only have one… what about the second one? They both had them when we last spoke to them.” Boogie pointed out. “If one is on the move and the other is stationary it means we have to split up and we don’t know unless the other one show up on the image here.”

“I can only pick up Ryth’s.” Corn muttered as he typed away, his back to the projection the others could see. “The signature says it’s hers at least, which mean’s Beat’s is either off line or damaged.”

“That’s can’t be right,” Jazz interrupted. “Beat NEVER has that thing turned off. He’s always using it as a radio connected to his headphones.”

“I was not aware the watches could do that.” Clutch added.

Yo-yo then interjected. “They can’t. Not the new ones you guys all have. But the old ones could as they ran on a radio frequency.” He took off his and handed it to Corn. “Try locking onto this one’s output frequency. It might not be a strong one since its rather old, but I know for a fact I didn’t take one of the newer ones as I wasn’t willing to part with all my music while skating. I Bet Beat felt the same way and his is the same exact one.”

“Thankyou Yo-yo.” Corn took the watch and connected a few wires to it so he could covert some of the data into the mainframe. “You’re not upset over all this are you?”

Yo-yo shrugged. “I’m a little hurt, But only because I cared about you both for a little while. It hurts a lot more to know that you both have a connection I never got to have and watching how much it means to you to have it.” Yo-yo smiled. “I am highly envious, but that doesn’t mean I hate you guys or anything. I’m relived we can still be mates after all that.”

“This isn’t the right time for this conversation” Gum folder her arms.

“There’s never going to be one sis, but it needs to come out into the open wither we want it to or not.” Corn said quietly still typing. Suddenly several hundred new dots littered the holographic map. “Shit, how many use the old signal?”

“Narrow it down to international radio frequencies.” Yo-yo prompted.

“Done.” The holoscreen lost all the dots except for Ryths and four other colours.

“You can narrow that down to Asia-Pacific music too,” Clutch added, he had been thinking about the music he had heard Beat listen to before. It wasn’t a secret, the music the guys was into, he was into a lot of things from all over the place, but he did have a massive soft spot for a little radio station that broadcasted music from Australia and New Zealand and smaller countries in the Asia pacific region.

Corn typed away, and the other dots went from four to one. It was a very light coloured and faded dot, but it wasn’t moving and was the only one on that frequency. It wasn’t far from the moving dot on 99th street, but was nowhere near the factory district, more in the abandoned buildings on the far side. Corn was impressed that Clutch and Yo-yo where actually being helpful and had both offered some ideas that where actually useful for a change, then cursed himself as they always have done that; just not to Corn direct before.

He spun around in the seat and started at the other GG’s in the glow of the holographic map. “Alright gang, here’s what we’re going to do…”

 

Beat shook the ropes off his wrists and started pulling at Ryth’s bondage ropes. He’d been singing songs for the past twenty minutes and was already suffering from a Charlie’s horse. Ryth had taken over singing a few when Beat was free, but Stephanie got a little upset when Beat had stopped singing songs about coconuts.

“Beat, I need you to start singing again, I’m losing it here…” Ryth said out the corner of her mouth, as she took a breather. Combo’s daughter looked like she was about to cry after her last attempt. It wasn’t that Ryth was a bad signer by far, but her song choices where not appropriate for anyone under the age of ten. She shook her arms into life as the ropes fell to the floor. She reached down to untie her feet while Beat did the same.

“There’s only so many times I can sing ‘I’ve got a lovely bunch of coconuts’ without wanting to puke Ryth, same goes for ‘puff the magic dragon.’” Beat pulled at the ropes free from his skates. Struggled upright a few times and felt around for the table in the middle of the room, using it as a guide to get to Combo’s daughter to untie her as well.

Ryth had stood up and had bumped into the table, while heading for the door and fumbled for a light switch. She flicked it and was happy when the light flickered on. The moment Comb’s daughter was free, she flung her arms around Beat and started crying and sobbing about how much she wanted to go home. Beat looked at Ryth helpless and she rolled over and took Stephanie off his hands. She could see his injuries in full now, and felt sorry for him having to listen to all the screaming and crying from the little girl for the past hour, as he must be wishing his head had split open. She lifted the little girl off the floor onto her feet and had to grab Beat to pull him upright so he didn’t lose all balance getting back up off the floor.

“Now what? There could be any of them still hanging around. We can’t just skate out the front door.” Ryth patted Stephanie’s head and held the girl close.

“If they were still in the building, they would have been back when they heard us all singing.” Beat’s voice came across rather harsh. “We were not very quiet about it, not with all three of us at any rate.” He flipped the table over and kicked one of the legs with his skates till it was loose enough to yank out of its fixings. You never knew when blunt objects could come in handy.

Ryth tried the door, but it had been locked tight from the outside. Beat indicated for her and Stephanie to move a safe distance before he brought the table leg around like a club, smashing parts of it into splinters and making areas of the door buckle. He swung again, this time the whole table leg shattered, also producing enough breakage on the door itself for it to be kicked out to make a hole big enough to fit through. Kicking it all out with his skates, Beat managed to take out most of the door. Ryth climbed though first and helped Stephanie step through the hole, while beat attacked another two table legs to get them free before stepping though just to make sure they were armed. Ryth could see where the splintered wood had caught him on the arms and on his hands; blood was tickling down them like little rivers. He looked very scary all beaten up, and it gave Ryth the shivers. He gave Ryth the spare table leg and used a hand to guide himself down the hallway infront of the girls. Ryth watched for a few moments, wondering how he was able to still function with one working eye and a very bad lack of balance. Stephanie ran after him and clung to the back of his singlet, her fear of him forgotten and walked as close as she dared. Ryth looked about to make sure they were not being followed, and then caught up to bring up the rear.

 

The GG’s had split up, half going for the warehouse, the others heading for the other signal at the building. Corn wasn’t sure that either one was safe, but treating both of them as traps was better than nothing. Gum was leading the building raid and so far, they had not come across anything that indicated that the building had been used recently let alone lived in for some time.

“Are you sure this is the right place?” She asked Clutch, who had a little miniature hologram on his watch which was pinpointing the location on the map.

“I’m pretty sure, the signal isn’t changing.” He replied.

“Right.” Gum looked the building up and down. “Let’s find out for ourselves shall we? Be on the alert everyone, this could be a trap.”

The rest of the GG’s in her little party nodded. Gum shouldered the door open.

 

Beat stopped near the end of the third story hallway. There was a room just around the corner that also had a light on and there was also noise coming from within.

“Stay put.”

Ryth nodded and pulled Stephanie close. Beat gripped the wooden table leg and ducked in around the corner. The room was more or less empty, save for a table with a large map with pins in it. The sounds was coming from a smaller room beyond it, a little transistor radio playing something rather jovial and upbeat. He moved in closer to the table, curiosity getting the better of him. There was places circled and marked on a large map of Tokyo-To with all the different prefectures marked with which gang owned what and where. All the GG turf, which surprising to Beat, was actually very small but one of the most densely populated areas of the city and one of the hardest to keep control of. It was sort after due to all the shops and business that still operated good trade in the area and one of the few places that largely went unaffected by Goji and his Rhinos. Out of all the years of living in japan and learning the language, he really should have learnt how to read it as well. There was two different dialects scrawled all over the map and he had no idea what they were let alone what they said. However he was good at deciphering pictures and the pins all in a small factory building in 99th street where sounding some alarm bells into his brain. The fact that the imagery around the building was all drawn in a flame-like pattern really sealed the thought mentally.

“Wha? How’d the fuck did you get untied?!”

Beat spun around and just missed being hit with a large chunk of metal piping. Garam was quick and his muscles flexed rapidly to swing again in a repeated and violent fashion, but were blocked by Beat with the table leg before the metal slammed into his head from the front. Beat kicked out to take a swipe at Garam’s legs with his heavy skates, connecting with one of his knees with a sickening crack sending him stumbling downward.

The metal swiped at Beat’s legs as Garam fell, slamming into the back of his calves, knocking him right over backwards onto the table, crashing right through it. Garam stumbled back onto his feet and swung again, this time Beat had nowhere to dodge, being wedged between the broken table halves. The metal hit bone with a lough crunch as it struck both of Beat’s arms as he raised them in self-defence. The pain was incredible, from the arm upwards to elbow joints, both arms had bones that where shattered on impact. He braced himself for another blow which mangled whatever little defense his forearms could offer.

He braced himself, as Garam was now smiling like a maniac and taunting, “I’ve always wanted to do this, Beat. Oh how much I have wanted to bash the crap out of you till your brains leaked out the side of your head… and now, I finally get that chance.” Garam raised the pipe with great ceremony and Beat forced himself to raise his injured arms one more time for an impact he wouldn’t be able to really block. The blow did not come. There was a clatter as the metal pipe was dropped onto the floor, and Beat could make out through the blood and blockade of bruised limbs, Garam landing on his knees, and keeling over. Ryth was standing there, blood all over the wooden table leg in her hands.

“Are you alright!?” Ryth dropped the makeshift weapon and pushed some of the table debris out of the way. It was rather hard to do, a nicely sized chuck on wood had gone into Beat’s side when the table snapped under his thrown weight making it a tedious affair. Ryth pulled at it violently before she realized where it was lodged, a little late when a painful yelp came from Beat when she tried to yank it loose. She let it go before she pulled it out and did further damage than what was already there. “This isn’t good. I can’t contact anyone for…” she stopped when Stephanie poked her head into the room. “Don’t come in stephie, it’s not safe.”

The little girl sniffed back tears. “Is Uncle Ry ok?” she stammered.

“Uncle Ry will be ok stephie, I promise.” Ryth lied. Beat looked like he’d been running through a gauntlet of medieval torture at this point, but the broken table was at least hiding him from her view.

“Stephie…” Beat’s voice stammered. “Go find Gum and the others….”

“You’re going to make her run out around the city on her own?” Ryth growled. She didn’t care if Beat was injured or not, there was no way she was going to send a little kid of eight out around without an adult.

“Ryth…they’re in danger… fire…they’re going to burn…” Beat’s voice was fading out from all the pain.

“What do you mean they’re all going to burn? What do you know Beat?” Ryth grabbed him by the shoulders, but all the shaking in the world wasn’t going to stop him from passing out. The map on the table was torn in half and a lot of it was now smeared in his own blood from the fall.

Ryth watched him mouth the word ‘trap’ before his eyes closed and went limp. Ryth quickly checked his breathing and his pulse and was relieved that he only blacked out, but it would only be a matter of time before other parts start failing from the blood loss. Ryth stood up and quickly moved over to stephaine, kneeled down and said quietly:

“Steph, I need you to do what Uncle Ry asked. Can you find Gum, Corn or someone and get help? Also can you warm them about a trap… I’m not too sure about that, but tell them to be careful as it will be on fire.” She hugged the little girl. “Can you do that for Auntie Rythie?”

Stephanie nodded. Ryth ran her hand reassuringly through the girl’s long hair. “That’d a girl. Now go, go find help.” She stood up as the little girl turned and ran for the staircase for the next floor down. Ryth turned back to the room, grabbed Garam by the legs and dragged him to the smaller room, closed the door and pushed one of the table halves right against it. He may only have that concussion temporarily and it was too risky to leave him in the same room in case he did come around before help arrived. Ryth knew she couldn’t take him on head to head and Beat was already trying to fight for his own life unable to defend either of them if Garam re-attacked.

 

“They could be in any room Jazz,” Gum snapped, the endless search room after room turning up nothing. Herself, Clutch and Jazz had managed to cover the whole first floor and almost the entirety of the second and still had not found any trace for the communication watch or their missing members. “That’s why we’re checking every single one. If they are not here, I’ll be annoyed like the rest of us, but at least we know they are not in this shit hole of a hovel.”

“This building has 10 stories, Gum. It will take longer than three hours and we do not have that much time. We wasted half an hour just finding the place.”

Gum sighed; she hated it when someone else besides her had a point.

“Hey, isn’t that Combo’s little girl?”

Both girls turned in response to Clutch who was walking towards the stairs for the third floor. Stephine saw them and started running towards them. She grabbed Clutch around the leg and hugged it tight.

“Uh.. umm. Are you all right Stephanie?” Clutch pride her from his leg carefully. When she was separated, she grabbed a hold of his oversized sweatshirt and pulled towards the stairwell.

“Auntie Rythie needs help,” she tugged harder. “Uncle Ry won’t wake up. Rythie said something about a fire, and a trap but wasn’t sure what it was supposed to mean. You need to help please!” the last few words came out practically begging for him to move faster.

“Fire?” Jazz fell quiet.

“Trap…The others…”

Both girls reached the same conclusion. The other GG’s where in danger.

“Don’t worry, just go,” Clutch grabbed Stephanie by the hand to stop her dragging him along on his skates. “I can handle it, we can’t have anyone else getting hurt.”

“Right. Jazz, let’s go.” Gum moved quickly for the stairs at the other end of the hall, followed by Jazz.

Clutch turned back to Combo’s little one. “Alright show me where they are, and I can see if I can help ok?”

 

The rest of the GG’s who wasn’t with Gum or keeping a watch on their small amount of turf for unusual activity, had headed for the warehouse in 99th street. Corn was leading the small group, although in truth, he was more or less letting Soda lead as he knew the area a lot better than he did. They skated up to the factory district, where massive long sheds and buildings littered the place, Trucks, vans, forklifts and other heavy machinery where also sitting dormant behind chain-link fences that where either electrified or had big vicious dogs behind them pacing up and down not quite barking, but the indescribable sound of creatures who’s mouths where full of sharp teeth and had jaws that could remove a human leg in just on sharp pull. Animals that had jaws that powerful did not need to advertise. The building they ended up infront of used to be an old flour mill storage facility that had gone under and had now become home to a lot of very fat and very dead rats as eating raw flour then drinking water is never a good combination for any creature involved.

Corn, Soda and Yo-yo split up and checked the surrounding area, and then scoped the outside of the building.

“There doesn’t seem to be anything odd about this place other than the fact it smells terrible.” Yo-yo commented. “It’s like this place is so damp it’s growing its own unique brand of mould. Why hasn’t the Eco-freaks been all over this biohazard yet?”

“Yeah, flour that tends to sit around for several years does have a musty smell.” Soda agreed.

“Musty smell? You’re too generous, try like Poison Jam’s current hide out in the sewers. I don’t know how the hell they can live with the smell being so close to a water treatment and surge plant in the heat wave we’ve been having.” Yo-yo rolled his eyes.

“Knock it off you two. If we had the advantage of surprise, you’ve just gone and blown it.” Corn hissed.

“Sorry, but it absolutely stinks around here.” Yo-yo stomped his feet, kicking up clouds of dirt and dust.

“No shit, but we have to take precautions.” Corn reasoned. “Alright, since everything seems pretty clear, we should at least check it out inside.” The other two nodded.

 

Stephanie pulled Clutch’s top and tried dragging him around the corner into the first room full of light on the third floor. Ryth had been able to move the other table half and had managed to yank the chuck of wood that was lodged in Beat’s side, currently applying pressure to the wound in a vain attempt to stop it bleeding. Clutch pulled off his sweater and leant down to use it as a pressure hold.

“You guys look like you’ve been through hell and back.”

Ryth looked at him earnestly and indicated to the other door where the other half of the table blocked off. “We’re not out of the woods yet, I don’t know how long Garam will stay knocked out for.”

Clutch was taken aback and his pretty little grey eyes scowled. “Garam did this?”

“Most of it.” Ryth checked Beat’s pulse again. The skater’s skin had gone deathly pale with the heavy loss of blood and pain mixing through his body. Ryth was beginning to worry he may not make it out this time. “Cube had a good few kicks into him earlier when he was still out cold. Both arms are pretty busted and there’s so much damage to his chest and stomach, I’m pretty sure he’s bleeding internally somewhere, I just hope I’m wrong because we can’t stop it if he is.” Stephanie had lifted his head and was cuddling it into her, gently sobbing. Clutch’s heart sank. He and Beat may not have always got along, but he wasn’t one to wish this on the poor bastard let alone anyone else. There was a few times he should have been booted from the GG’s and despite all the evidence against him, Beat had stuck up for him to some degree, only to remind him that one day he won’t and he was on his own… though when that day was going to come had not so far and Clutch didn’t want to chance it.

There was some noise from behind the blocked off door. Clutch felt around not taking his eyes off the other room and griped his hand around the metal pipe that had been pretty bent from all the hits on Beat’s forearms. He stood up slowly and indicated for Ryth to move the table infront. Ryth swallowed, but watched Clutch as he lay flat against the wall on the side the door would swing back from. Stephanie hugged Beat tighter, she was so scared and it brought even the lest little bit of comfort. Clutched mouthed a countdown and Ryth yanked the table out of the way, the door swinging back almost knocking her over from being behind it. Garam didn’t even have time to register the scene in the room before Clutch swung the metal with both arms, knocking the guy arse over face and back down onto the floor. He poked Garam with the pipe just to be sure he was well and truly out of it, then spat, “That’s for insulting me and my girlfriend, you arsehole.” He dropped the pipe with a clatter and turned back to matters that where a little more urgent. “Ok, We’ll take his skates off otherwise it’ll be too much extra weight for us to carry out of here. Stephanie can carry them, I don’t want to have anything left behind here that’d link us to his death if Garam dies from that last hit, I doubt it as I couldn’t have hit the bastard hard enough….” Clutch Growl the last part. Garam had really upset him the night before. “You’ll have to lead the way to Soda’s place, as I’ve honestly never been before, and that’s safer than our own turf right now.”

 

“Did you guys hear that?” Soda looked up over the top of some crates.

“Hear what?” Yo-yo chimed. “All I can hear is those stupid mixed bred mongrels that are guarding the other buildings.”

“What did it sound like?” Corn had learned to trust Soda a little more than Yo-yo when it came to noises and things, the guy was like a very tall radar dish when it can to hearings unusual sounds.

Soda wasn’t paying attention; he had turned and started skating for the door where they came in. The doors where now closed and he slammed his weight against them and they wouldn’t budge. “That is what I heard.” He said when the other two caught up to him.

“Is there another way out?”

“There should be, it is a warehouse after all.” Corn felt doubt climb into his words, the three of them had barely made it to the middle of the building with all the creates and unused mouldy bags of flour making it hard for them to make their way around to find anything.

The boys split up a little away from each other, careful to at least keep each other in sight while looking around for another exit. Yo-yo paused and sniffed. “Can you smell that guys?”

“Look we’re already aware this place stinks, you don’t need to keep pointing it out Yo.”

“No it’s not that, it’s different. It smells like Kerosene…. And Beat’s clothes when you’ve borrowed them.”

“Look I resent that, I don’t smoke, Beat does and the smell of smoke just lingers through everything no matter how many times you put it in the wash!”

“Knock it off.” Soda’s voice broke through making them fall silent. “I can smell it too.”

There was a loud explosion from the far end of the building as some of the bags of flour caught on fire. The ones that were not affected by the damp still had the potential to be highly flammable. The gas created as the flour in the bags fermented was going to make this place blow to pieces with them inside it.

Both Gum and Jazz had to break as the sound of a bomb going off filled the whole district. Jazz pointed, “Over there! The whole building’s alight!” Gum looked in the direction and could see the huge ominous orange and red glow further along the line of buildings fill the evening sky.

“FUCK!” Gum swore, much to Jazz’s surprise. She’d never known the blonde to use any sort of foul language. “Jazz, contact Boogie and Combo and tell them to get their arses down to 99th street pronto, we’ve got some GG’s to save!” She skated off as fast as she could in the direction of the explosions.

 

Clutch and Ryth had managed to carry Beat out of the building between them when they also heard the explosions. The sky was foreboding and the skyline was alight further down the street itself.

“Gum and Jazz better have got there in time.” Clutch sounded stressed, he was beginning to wish he had gone himself to warn them about the trap. “I damn well hope they did. If anything happens to them I will hunt Cube down myself.”

“You won’t be the only one.” Ryth added. “I have a few scores of my own to settle.”

“She’ll … not… be far…”

Clutch and Ryth both looked at Beat who was slung between them, amazed he had come to.  “What do you mean by that?”

“She… she’ll watch… it burn….” He breathed.

“Well we can’t we need to get you as far away from here as possible.” Ryth reshouldered his arm over her shoulder. Stephanie was holding onto Clutches stripy long sleeved shirt, the executive decision was to make her wear Beat’s skates so she could grab onto one of them and they could have her skate to keep up with them. The poor girl looked terrified.

“All we can do is hope.” Clutch cursed himself for saying it, but the words seemed to have an effect, as Beat was no longer fighting to snap himself out of it, aware that he was in no condition to do anything about it.

 

Another few bags of flour exploded, forcing all three to duck and take cover of the crates while trying to make their way to the only exit they knew of. A stack of bags on Soda’s left hand side had become engulfed in flames, Corn throwing both Soda and himself down onto the concrete flooring as the flour from the Bags when up in a ‘WHOOMPH!” They both looked up to see Yo-yo hopping around, his hoodie alight. They both climbed up onto their feet, Corn grabbing a tarp on route, throwing it over Yo-yo, both Soda and Corn shook it and patted it heavily till the flames went out. Yo-yo was slightly singed, but was relived to no longer be one fire. The flour bags were starting to all explode a lot faster and more rapidly in succession, and the boys started running as fast as they could on skates for the door, throwing as much body weight as they could but unable to get it to budge. They were all coughing and Corn knew they would suffocate long before the burned to death. He pulled his shirt over his nose and the others did the same. It wasn’t much but being able to breathe was more important than dying. The three of them slid down onto the floor to stay below the flour and carbon cloud, wishing they’d been a lot more careful. Corn looked up when he heard banging on the other side of the doors, he shuffled to at least get onto his knees, Soda slipping fully to the floor from overheating and Yo-yo trying to help Corn stand managed to get both of them up right to drag Soda a little away from the door as it was bashed open, splinters going everywhere as a large van ploughed through. Gum, Jazz and Boogie clambered out of the van and helped them drag Soda into the van, slamming the doors just as Combo floored the pedals and swung the vehicle violently around and sped out of there, just as a fireball of flour crashed through the ceiling where they had just been.

 

Kodachi had been worrying about her husband and his friends the whole afternoon, so much so she even had laid out all the medical supplies she had in the house in the living room, along with spare bamboo mats lined with clean sheets. She didn’t know what was going to happen, weather anyone was going to be hurt or not, but after all the stories her husband had told her over the years and the various injuries he had sported of his own, she would not put it past them to all wind up at their house all in various states. She would rather they didn’t and that they were all ok, but things can’t always that way.

There was a lot of coughing coming from outside the front door when she opened it and was taken aback when it was her own Husband who was in need of the most medical attention. Combo and Corn both laid Soda down on one of the mats on the floor, Combo checking him over and Corn just flopping onto the floor. Soda’s coat had been peeled off him and Combo grabbed a face washer off Kodachi and just threw it over the top half of his face.

“Sorry love, His jacket is not the most practical thing to wear when a warehouse goes up in flames.” Combo mumbled, ashamed to have to be the barer of bad news.

Soda’s wife leant in and kissed him and did her own checking of her husband’s life signs. “He’ll be fine at least.” She smiled, despite holding back a tear. “I’m more relieved that you guys got him out of their in one piece. That’s more than I can wish for.”

The other’s filed in, Yo-yo flopping on the floor also, his face bright red and his hair and clothes smelling of charred cotton. Gum and Jazz looked around but neither of them could see who they expected to be there.

“Where’s Ryth, Clutch, Stephanie and Beat? They should have been here already.” Jazz prompted, both girls now getting looks from the others who didn’t know what had happened with them at the other building.

“They maybe still on their way, we did steal that van to get the others out of the burning factory. They had to skate here.” Gum reminded her. “I just hope it was alright leaving Clutch there to help them out.”

“Of course it was alright,” Said a voice behind them. “It’d would be nice if you could give us a hand though and send someone back to the building to get Garam and try and find out why they did all this. We couldn’t bring him with us without dragging him around and that does quite a bit of damage to a bald head on concrete.”

They all looked at Clutch and Ryth who had entered, reshouldering Beat’s weight. “We’ll explain everything that we can as soon as we get some help please, Beat’s not holding out very well. The next time he passes out on us we might lose him.” Ryth looked stern. Stephanie poked her head out from behind Clutch, saw Combo and ran towards his out stretched arms.

“DADDDY!” she squealed, so happy to be with her father. Combo held onto her really tight, afraid that someone might take her off him again. Corn was quick to stand back up, stumbled as he had a little heat exhaustion to hamper him, but never the less he was going to help them get Beat into the middle of the room so they could have look at him. Soda at least now was coming back around.

The three of them lay Beat down on another mat, Clutch straightaway grabbing a cloth to clean up his wounds, But stopped when Corn’s hand rested on his, indicating that he wanted to attend to Beat’s wounds personally. Clutch handed the cloth over and stood back up.  Then Corn spoke absently, “How long do you think it will be before you guys can go back and bring Garam here secured of course, so we can interrogate him?” he looked up at Clutch, hoping the red head would give him an answer.

“As quick as we can surely. I’m pretty sure we laid him out for at least a good few hours.” Clutch answered.

“Combo, Take Clutch and Yo-yo and go back and get Garam.” Corn spoke harshly. “Use the van. The girls will make sure your daughter is ok and doesn’t go anywhere.”

Combo looked at him, and at Clutch. “Alright.” He stood up and Yo-yo Groaned, rolling off his chair ungracefully to follow both Combo and Clutch outside.

“Gum?”

“Yes Corn?”

“When they come back I want you to take over asking all the questions. Then I want you to organise a plan of attack on our own turf. I have a feeling the information we’ll get will Involve Cube and Poison Jam taking over our territory, and we’ll need to be prepared to take it back. You’re the best at planning direct assaults, so I know you will not let me down.” He took a deep breath. “Ryth, Soda you’re both stood down for now, I want you guys to rest, we may need you guys as back up if this goes bad.”

Ryth nodded and Soda let out a groan. He was sitting up now, and had seen the state of Beat who was next to him and could feel the anger radiating off Corn. Being in the same room for the time being wasn’t an option worth considering. He had got up shakily with Kodachi’s help and she escorted him to their bedroom to rest. Ryth grabbed Stephanie’s hand and joked to her about making some cookies, and walked with her into the kitchen followed by Jazz and Boogie who could feel a storm beginning to brew. Gum excused herself, she decided that it would be a good idea to set up another room where they could have Garam temporarily contained for his interrogation. This left Corn alone with Beat, the red head barely staying with Corn while he tended to his injuries. Corn attempted to keep talking to him to get him to respond back, at least this way he could make sure he didn’t slip out of conciseness.

“Corn… you’re not hurt..?”

“A little singed, but otherwise alright. Soda got the worst of it.”

“Heh… typical… Yasu the in…invincible… survives everything ….thrown...at him.” Corn was sure he saw Beat smile when he mumbled it. “I knew .. they’d…save ..you in….”

“Right now, I’m more worried about you Ryan.” Corn clicked his teeth, the one injury to the back of head was going to be a hard one to treat. Dried blood was mattered into his hair making it looks darker and dirtier.

“Nah… Can’t be….been worse…”

This made Corn smile. Beat was right; he had been in much worse states than this before. “I remember there was one time you missed the jump between two buildings when we had the Immortals on our tails. Instead of hitting concrete from about seven floors up, you his every single annex and roof over hang on the way down before landing in a dumpster.”

“Broke …collar bone…”

“You broke more than that. You landed on your right hand side, shattering everything in your right arm and leg. Hitting those sloped roof over hangings broke your left wrist, four ribs-”

“Shattered …Pel..vis… I remember.” He winces when Corn lifted his right arm. “So… much pain.”

“Now or then?” Corn mused, tying Beat’s wrist and elbow joint before placing a metal ruler flat along the length of the forearm and bandaging it into place tightly so Beat couldn’t move the arm and do further damage. He had done this before with broken limbs especially when Beat was concerned, the guy could not keep off the damn things for the right length of time, always wanting to be back in the action as soon as possible. Using a ruler as a splint was a very good makeshift idea when there was nothing else to hold a broken limb straight when in the middle of being pursued by police.

“Both…” Beat whispered.  He winced and tried to jerk away from Corn as picked up the other arm to do the same restraints as the other. There was a slight whimper of pain that Corn had never heard before from another person that was unique to Beat. It was a sound of someone trying hard not to show any feeling of pain, but was bad at controlling the responses.

“I’m sorry this is going to hurt a lot, Ryan.” Corn instantly felt guilty when he got the reaction.

“No… I shouldn’t…. get like…this… my fault.”

Corn lent in and whispered in his ear. “It’s not you know. And if you didn’t go out fighting, you wouldn’t be the person I fell in love with.” He kissed Beat on the forehead.

Ryth re-entered and leaned on one of the chairs. “Don’t forget to make sure he can feel some pain in his legs while you’re at it this time Corn.” She remarked. “He had a pretty short fight with Garam which had him wedged between two table halves trying to defend himself with his broken arms. He most likely landed on the table with his back and I’d be pretty worried if there’s any damage to his spine.”

“Thankyou Ryth.” Corn replied, not looking up. “I’ll do that when I come to it.”

“Just reminding that’s all.” Ryth chirped.

“How… about no?” Beat mumbled. “No more… pain… Please.” He was starting to wish Cube and Garam had killed him about now. His body was screaming all sorts of demands and his nerves system was finding it difficult getting a clear passage way to the brain to wave all the uncashed checks around.

“Sorry love. You have presented me without much alternative in your present state. I’m not looking forward to see what’s happened under that shirt yet… but I have a feeling it’s going to be very black and blue with hints of colourful purples.” Corn frowned. He didn’t like seeing Beat in pain much less than Beat liked being the one going through it.

There was the sound of a scuffle coming through the doorway, and Combo shoved Garam through into the room. Clutch and Yo-yo flanked around, ready for any sudden attempts Garam might have of escaping, which were few and far between. No one, not even Garam would want to do something stupid with a person the size of Combo breathing down their necks.

“Get Gum Ryth.” Corn said, sending the Blue hair skater out of the room. He stood up, tapping Beat on the knee to reassure him he was coming back in a few moments. The redhead’s leg jerked, which Corn took as a sign that there wasn’t much spinal damage after all. Corn walked right up to Garam and stood inches from him; being shorter it was hard to make himself look imposing.

Corn could have said anything at this point and the others would have gutted Garam alive where he stood. They did not like being messed around with, and didn’t like it when people in their gang where injured due to stupidity. Clutch would gladly give him a broken nose and even blacker eyes, the guy was itching to lay into him.

Silence filled the room. Corn drew back one heavy skate and kicks Garam squarely where the sun doesn’t shine, the former GG keeling over with pain.

“Get him out of my sight. Help Gum find out whatever she needs from him and then dump his sorry arse in an alley somewhere, and give him as many good thumps as you see fit.” He turned to Gum when she and Ryth came in. “Don’t be afraid to use cruel and unusual punishment to get him to talk, then organise a take back. I’ll be behind you all the way. I can’t think straight right now so I’m relying on you to be able to for me.”

Gum nodded and grabbed Garam by the shirt front and dragged him off. “This way you pile of shit. Don’t fall down on your trip down the stairs; I still want to be able to talk to you afterwards.” The others followed behind her, making sure that escape for Garam was not an option.

“You’re.. not ..going with…them?”

Corn sat back down beside Beat’s side and tugged up Beat’s singlet where the wound in his side was. Already across his chest and stomach he could see nasty looking bruises that made him really furious that he didn’t stab Garam then and there just for the sake of revenge. It would have been all for nothing if he had, and he wasn’t that kind of person… as long as he thought it, it didn’t matter.

“No. Gum can handle things from here. I don’t think I’d be able to control my anger if I lead the assault to reclaim GG turf. Besides, the one thing I care about is here, not there. And it needs me more than anything else right now. They’re already mad, and hankering for revenge. I can smell the blood in the air and I’d rather it not be mine.” He paused, cleaning up the wound a bit and smiling when he heard Beat hiss though clenched teeth as the sting of rubbing alcohol bit through the damaged part of his body. “Besides, making sure yours isn’t some of it is part of my job too” He blinked when Beat’s hand, despite being attached to a heavily bandaged arm rested on his knee and squeezed.

“Yeah… sorry about… that….” And with that he tried sitting up, Corn grabbing him to stop him from falling backward. He was still weak and resting against Corn was starting to make him feel a lot better. Corn just held him close for a few moments, while Beat tried to loosely do the same.

“Come on, let’s get you to the bathroom and get that blood out of your hair. Then we can go and rest together in our room. It’d be nice to be able to do that for a little while…I just need to be close to you. I was worried sick about you and just want to make you all better so everything will be alright again.” Corn was answered with a nod, and He stood up carefully, not letting Beat go, helping him up off the mat and limp over to the bathroom. A few hours late Gum opened the door to their shared room and decided against all better judgement to leave them be. Beat all patched up and in bandages wrapped protectively in Corn’s sleeping arms was not something she was about to spoil, even though she knew Corn wanted to get back at Cube for everything she and Garam had done.

 

It had been a few days since and Corn had heard some pretty wild stories about what actually went down in the turf reclaim. Yoyo’s was the wildest and out of all of them, the most unbelievable, but after hearing Jazz’s account of events that went down, He preferred Yo-yo’s version. Corn felt a little surprised when he had little interest about what really happened, other than the fact that Gum proved herself to be the next leader, and he was more than happy to hand it over to her. The GG’s where his family, and there comes a time where you need a little break and some space from them now and again.

Yo-yo was sitting in the living room, filling Beat on the details also. Beat had healed pretty well, his arms still bandaged and his chest all bruised, but Corn was starting to find it hard pressed to keep him actually resting. Beat was always trying to do things, and trying to slip outside even if only to wander off down the street to the local store, just hoping to bump into someone. The guy had never understood the word ‘relax’ in his life. It was pretty clear to Yo-yo and a few of the others too.

Eventually, one afternoon Yo-yo had to pull Corn aside.

“Yo, you can’t expect him to want to rest when he’s got nothing to do.” Yo-yo said, bluntly. “even you spend a lot of time around the GG garage in your down time, so you can’t expect him to sit at home and recover on his lonesome all day.”

“But there are so many things I have to do before Gum fully takes over, I can’t leave it a mess.” Corn hesitated. The truth was he was feeling a little left out about the rest of them kicking Cubes behind out of Tokyo-to he wanted to try and get into it all again. It had not occurred to him Beat would be feeling the same way.

“How’s he healing up?”

“Pretty good. Might be able to remove the splints soon; though he’s hands seem to be unaffected. He’s read every book in Soda’s house, listened to every single cd he and I both own… filled up 6 sketchbooks over 3 days…. I’m running low on ideas. I don’t want him to come back just yet in case something happens and he’s back to square one again.”

“Pfft, is that all?”

Corn looked Yo-yo straight in the face. “What do you mean, ‘is that all?’ of course it is, he’s still in a pretty bad way so I can’t expect him to do too much.”

“So you two haven’t… you know… been getting..” Yo-yo hinted. “You surely hadn’t been THAT afraid of hurting him.” Yo-yo was really surprised by his friend’s nativity.

“Er.. I don’t know quite what you’re getting at.”

Yo-yo rolled his eyes and pulled Corn close like a younger brother would to an older sibling who has yet to experience the joys of life. “There’s more than one way to keep him in bed resting I’m pretty sure. You guys have done it before right?”

“That’s none of your business.” Corn growled. Personal was personal and he was not about to tell Yo-yo all about the intimacies of his sex life.

“So what’s stopping you guys taking some time away and getting a bit closer? Enjoy your downtime, that sort of thing?” Yo-yo protested. “I’m sure Beat wouldn’t mind. It’d make him feel better I assure you.”

“You’re absolutely positive?”

“Of course. There’s nothing worse than being avoided when you’re not feeling one hundred precent.” Yo-yo laughed. “He’s your boyfriend for crying out loud. Spend some time with him; maybe get him a gift of something. Just don’t let this go on forever otherwise he might get silly ideas. He may not care that you’re here helping us out, but I bet he really does care he’s not getting the same interaction with you.” Yo-yo then slapped Corn on the back. “Get him a new pair of headphones or something. He might like that more than you think.”

“Maybe…” Corn thought about it. “Hey, isn’t there some sort of Concert going to be on in the main city Deathball dome?”

“Yeah, they converted it into a concert hall after Goji was taken down to see if they could use it to boost the economy back up or something. Some unknown American singer- song writer is going to preform, though I can’t see him drawing much of a crowd.”

Corn snorted. “Says the expert on music.” He rolled his eyes. Yo-yo then shoved a piece of torn newspaper under his nose. “What’s this?”

“That,” Yo-yo pointed to the picture, “Is the guy who’s preforming. He’s preformed as Hiroshima before and this is his second tour in twelve years. He’s got a new album or something.”

Corn took the shred of paper. Under the photo was a name of the singer. It wasn’t something he’s have noticed right away, but when Yo-yo mentioned he was at Hiroshima before a few things slided into place. “The concert at Hiroshima, he fell off stage right?”

“The performer?” Yo-yo was surprised by Corn’s sudden interest. “Yeah, he had a head injury and a twisted ankle when he fell off the front of the stage. The idiot kept playing though. I don’t know why you’re interested, he doesn’t sing in Japanese, at least maybe only one or two songs.”

Corn smiled. “You have no idea what you’ve just put into my lap. Do you think they’ll still have tickets?”

 

Corn stepped into the Kitchen back at Soda’s place after spending most of the afternoon trying to find a shop that sold tickets to big name shows. It was a hard find, most shops of that nature had closed down and fled town under Goji rule and very few of them where eager to return. Hopefully it was worth it.

“Where’s Soda and Kodachi?”

“Out of town. You missed them as they left this afternoon. Soda’s wife thought while things are quiet she’d take them to see family in Osaka.” Beat placed down on the bench. “As usual we’ve been told not to trash the place, and not to hold anyone hostage here. Kodachi doesn’t particularly want this house featured on the news due to some sort of murder.” He slid something onto the plates alongside some roasted veggies. Corn poked it gingerly, as he was not familiar with any western foods. Beat frowned. “It’s not going to bite. It’s just lamb. Well done too, as I can’t stomach anything under cooked and still bleeding. Charred and a little burnt tastes far better and less chance of food poisoning.” He paused. “Something wrong? I thought I’d try and keep myself occupied. I know I’m not fit enough to run around the city with the Gang yet, but in a few weeks I’m ready to push some of the other gangs around.”

“I was thinking we could take a few off ourselves actually..” Corn said absent minded. “Gum pretty much has everything under control, and she said herself she’s call us if she needed us.”

Beat gave Corn a dirty look. “That can only mean she told you to rack off and leave everything to her right?”

“ No. not exactly.”

“Yes, that’s exactly how it would have gone.” Beat smiled. “You’re not a person to argue with your sister Yasu.” He winked.

“No, this time I decided it. She just agreed with me. I realised who I should be spending some time with while things are nice and quiet.”

“Oh and who would that be?” Beat laughed as Corn flicked a pea at him and a few sliced carrots. “Hey, you’re supposed to eat those.”

Corn stopped long enough to slide a decently large box across the table. “For you. I have been thinking about you this whole time and no one else. Hanging around with the others has been able to give me some ideas on what to give you to make you feel a bit better.” He looked over at Beat who had gone quiet staring at the box. “You can open it you know.”

Beat had gone red with embarrassment. “It wasn’t necessary.”

“Just open it already.” Corn was trying to hide his amusement at seeing his lover all flustered.

Beat hesitated. Gifts where not something he’d been able to accept from anyone for a long time. There was always a slim chance of whatever strange package that was proffered to you was indeed either lethal or harmful. He opened the box carefully, Corn sighing, realising that this wasn’t the best way to present a gift, when you were afraid it was going to be something explosive inside.

Beat pulled out a large pair of headphones out gingerly, and felt the weight of them. They were quite large, and while not quite like his first pair and not even similar to his second, they were still very impressive. He also pulled out slim looking yellow shimmering thing which resembled a MP3 player.

“Think of it as an upgrade from your CDs. I know you prefer a hardcopy of them and collect records and things… but having something more portable when we go places would be nicer, don’t you think?” Corn tried to hide his smile behind his hands while he rested on his palms.

“I can’t really accept this.” Beat looked fairly guilty.

“Why not? You are going to have to get used the idea of someone who actually wants to dote on you now and again. You deserve everything and maybe more for the stuff you do.”

Beat was no longer listening. He found something else in the box. He looked up and threw several veggies at Corn. “How in the hell did you get these?!” He lowered the box lid and waved some thin pieces of paper around. “I heard they were sold out! I even went to several ticket places myself down the street that told me that there was none left!”

“So that’s what you were up to.”

“Of course, I’m not going to sit around all day when I know one of my favourite performers is in town.” Beat frowned. “How’d you know anyway? No, actually… how’d you get tickets? I don’t think I’ve ever told anyone the bands I like before.”

Corn shrugged. “Just be happy I got them.” In truth he didn’t really know anything about the music Beat listened to or the bands. The only reason he remembered was Beat had mentioned it once and made him listen to a few of the songs. They were all different, and Corn was amazed they were all the same performer. He had borrowed a few of the CD’s to listen to himself late at night long after Beat had dozed off, and was not even close to working out why Beat loved the artist so much.

Beat had stood up and walked a few steps and stopped. Corn got up also, unsure what Beat was doing, only to have Beat double back and hug him amorously tight. “Thankyou. I don’t deserve you at all sometimes.”

“No, you do. Just enjoy it.” He hugged him back. Beat pulled back a fraction to give him a kiss, a little forceful than normal, but he really couldn’t contain his excitement. Corn just went with the flow, and gave him another softer kiss before they parted.

“What about dinner?”

“We can always re-heat it. It’s not going anywhere.” Beat pulled Corn in for another soft kiss, this time not stopping there, and fluttering them along Corn’s neck down to the rim of his t-shirt. “We have a whole house to ourselves for a few days, let’s make the most of it.”

“Oh really? Well in that case, there’s something I wanted to try after our little rendezvous in the shower.” Corn pushed Beat backwards until he was pressed up a nearby wall. “And I know exactly what sounds I want you to make too…” he tickled Beat who squirmed. “Don’t worry I promise it won’t hurt much.” He pressed his lips against Beat’s a little harder and let his hands take full control. His fingertips slid under Beat’s t-shirt and he ran his nails down his sides, causing him to shiver under the touch. Beat tried to jerk away playfully as some of the tickling was making his start to laugh, but Corn held him pretty tight, unwilling to let his escape. “You’re not going to get away that easily.” Corn purred, his voice a little more predatory than usual.

“Hey, that’s not fair, come on, you know I can’t stand that!” Beat chuckled loudly as Corn traced his fingers around in a slow to rapid pattern that spiralled from the waist up to the chest. Beat squirmed like a can of worms, but Corn persisted. He grabbed Beat’s hands as they were flung out against him to tease back, so he was optimal control. He knew once Beat’s fingers when upon him it would all be over and the tables will turn back very quickly and he was not about to let that happen this time.

Lightly pinning Beat’s arms to the wall behind and applying a small amount of his own weight to stop them from moving, Corn trailed little nips down Beat’s neck from the lips and gave him a deep love bite just above the shirt collar, which elicited a small yelp from his lover. That’s what Corn was wanting to her, those sweet little cries he got Beat to make several nights ago. He had to move on of his hands to peel Beat’s shirt up a little so he could trail kisses underneath along his body, taking care to breathe gently on some of the bruises that where still remaining, making Beat move a little involuntary beneath him. He nipped his way down further, and paused to use his tongue to circle the belly button and follow the light snail trail across his abdomen near his hips. He turned his hands to running along the sensitive area of his lover’s waist, one hand absently following a trail of one of the tattoos that lay across there. Beat whimpered softly, that is until Corn slid his hands down the back of his jeans… he couldn’t help the little squeak that came out in response to the sensation Corn was making with his fingertips and nails. Corn loosened the jeans till the slid down far enough, his hands wriggling the redhead slightly out of his boxers too… then moved in for the kill.

“Ugnh!” Beat squeaked, his hands reaching for Corn, but having to settle for resting on Corn’s head as being that little bit too tall to reach him when he was so low down. “Ah….Huh…Ah..” He panted as Corn really started to play with his body, the blonde’s hands running across his inner thighs and around the soft parts of his pelvis. All the noises did was encouraging Corn to pursue the teasing further; knowing that Beat would try and hold on till teasing was no longer an option. It made things interesting, a test to see how far he could really push his lover.

“AH!” there was another squeak, thought this time, Beat’s whole body moved in an effort to push him off the wall. “Yas….”

Corn paused and then said. “I want to hear you beg, otherwise, I’m just going to keep teasing.”

“Nuh uh… you’re not going to be so mean…” Beat breathed. “You wouldn’t, would you?”

“What’s to stop me?” Corn gave a devious grin before going back to what he was doing. Beat let loose an uncontrollable growl before another funny sound. It was embarrassing, but as long as it was only Corn that could hear it; it didn’t matter.

“Not gonna.AH.. beg…” Beat panted. Corn then changed tactic and started nibbling as well. The teasing was too much and there was very little to stop him from letting go. He was relived Corn had the sense to move away in time. Corn wasn’t finished with him yet though, while Beat was struggling to recover, he removed the redhead’s trousers and pressed himself against him, making sure Beat could feel how excited he was. He brought him down for some more long kisses, and Beat’s hands delved without much incentive given into Corn’s own slack pants. Corn purred and pressed into Beat a bit harder. Corn could have almost gone then and there when he heard the little excited yelp when he rubbed himself against his lover. He himself couldn’t help but groan in response. Beat didn’t make much work of Corn’s loose slacks, they were already slipping down to the floor along with his underwear, his hands touching Corn briefly and getting a predatory growl, which Corn then really pressed his lips against Beat’s with a bit more ferocity than before. It was a little awkward at first from standing, but Corn really pushed and Beat yelped loudly when Corn was more intimate than before. The height difference made it easier for Corn, he didn’t have to hold any of Beat’s weight as the other’s feet where still able to touch the floor. He pressed Beat against the wall as he pushed, careful not to squash him, although Beat was holding onto him pretty tight like his life was depending on it. Corn made sure that their lips stayed as close as possible, only breaking his kisses when he pushed and Beat let out little pleading yelps in reply.

“Nuh… Yas…” Beat started to plead. Corn pushed hard suddenly and Beat’s head hit the wall behind. “Ah! Ow! Ah…ugh..”

“Just.. ungh.. a few..Ugh.. more Ry.” Corn was animate that he wasn’t about to stop. “Unh… watch you Nuhh.. head.” He bucked upward and Beat’s whole body slammed back against the wall, the redhead’s grip on Corn dug into his back harder from the fright. Corn couldn’t help it, Beat just felt so good and he didn’t want it to end.

“Uh… Ah… uh..” Beat’s voice started making odd sounds as he tried hiding his face into Corn’s shoulder. “Ah!” the last squeak made him bite into Corn’s skin, hard enough to actually braise the flesh.

Corn gave one final push, and it was a hard one that neither expected. Beat’s body hit the wall again, and his nails buried deep into Corn’s skin. Corn leant into him, so they could stay together for a few moments before having to separate. Beat had gone very limp with exhaustion and Corn ran a free hand through his hair. He didn’t want to let go and there was nothing that was going to make him do so.

“Ryan?”

“Yasu…”

“I love you.”

“I love you too.”

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [One Kiss](https://archiveofourown.org/works/716511) by [meikahidenori](https://archiveofourown.org/users/meikahidenori/pseuds/meikahidenori)




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